GIFT   OF 


SIXTY    YEARS    WITH 
THE    BIBLE 


BOOKS  BY  WILLIAM  NEWTON  CLARKE,  D.D. 
PUBLISHED    BY    CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 


Sixty  Years  with  the  Bible,     izrno, 

(Postage  extra),    net,  $1.25 

The  Christian    Doctrine    of    God.      (International 
Theological  Library.)  Cr.  8vo, 

(Postage  extra),  net,  $2.50 

The  Use  of  the  Scriptures  in  Theology.    12 mo, 

net,  $1.00 

A  Study  of  Christian  Missions.  i2mo,  .  1.25 
Can  I  Believe  in  God  the  Father  ?  12010,  .  i.oo 
What  Shall  We  Think  of  Christianity?  i2mo,  i.oo 
An  Outline  of  Christian  Theology.  Cr.  8vo,  net,  2.50 


SIXTY    YEARS    WITH 
THE    BIBLE 

A  RECORD   OF  EXPERIENCE 


BY 

WILLIAM   NEWTON   CLARKE 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1909 


COPYRIGHT,  1909,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  September,  1909 


Q 

-.  • 

•• 

Q"'i 


V 

> 


CONTENTS 

I 

PAGE 
THE  MOTIVE 1 

II 
THE  FIFTIES        11 

III 
THE  SIXTIES 33 

IV 

THE  SEVENTIES  ...          .....       70 

V 

THE  EIGHTIES 124 

VI 

THE  NINETIES     ....          ....     193 

VII 

THE  NEW  CENTURY  244 


303997 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 


THE  MOTIVE 

NOT  for  the  sake  of  telling  the  story, 
but  for  the  sake  of  what  the  story  may 
tell,  do  I  sit  down  to  write  these  notes  of 
memory.  With  respect  to  the  Bible,  I  am 
one  of  the  men  who  have  lived  through 
the  crisis  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  and 
experienced  the  change  which  that  cen- 
tury has  wrought.  I  began,  as  a  child 
must  begin,  with  viewing  the  Bible  in  the 
manner  of  my  father's  day,  but  am  end- 
ing with  a  view  that  was  never  possible 
until  the  large  work  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century  upon  the  Bible  had  been  done. 
Thus  I  am  entering  into  the  heritage  of 
my  generation,  which  I  consider  it  both 
my  privilege  and  my  duty  to  accept.  To 
[  9  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

some  of  my  friends  it  may  seem  that  I 
have  changed  too  much,  and  to  others 
that  I  have  changed  too  little.  It  may 
indeed  be  that  I  have  made  mistakes, 
sometimes  in  one  direction  and  some- 
times in  the  other.  That  is  the  human 
way.  But  I  know  that  I  have  followed 
my  light,  and  passed  through  the  revolu- 
tion to  which  my  generation  was  born, 
and  have  never  come  into  danger  of  los- 
ing my  faith  in  God  and  Jesus  Christ. 
If  a  man  may  say  it  of  himself,  I  have 
passed  without  ruin  over  what  many 
deem  to  be  a  very  dangerous  way — nay, 
over  a  road  that  truly  has  its  perils,  not  to 
be  forgotten  or  despised. 

Many,  I  know,  have  gone  over  that 
road  of  change  at  my  side,  or  a  little  be- 
fore or  after,  and  many,  willing  or  unwill- 
ing, are  making  the  journey  now.  Many, 
too,  are  wondering  whether  they  shall  be 
compelled  to  go,  and  are  looking  with 
alarm  on  the  perils  that  beset  the  way. 
[  4  ] 


THE  MOTIVE 

Very  many  are  pitying  those  who  have 
been  compelled  to  set  forth.  Is  it  possi- 
ble, these  inquirers  ask,  for  a  man  to 
make  this  change  with  regard  to  the 
Bible  without  losing  his  faith,  not  to  say 
his  soul  ?  Can  there  be  good  reasons  for 
it?  Is  it  credible  that  the  steps  are 
legitimate?  Is  it  to  be  supposed  for  a 
moment  that  a  man  can  be  led  by  sound 
reason  and  good  religious  experience 
from  the  old  attitude  toward  the  Bible 
to  the  new  ?  Can  there  possibly  be  any 
leading  of  the  Spirit  of  truth  in  this  ex- 
perience ?  Is  it  not  a  mere  wandering  on 
the  dark  mountains  without  a  guide? 
For  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Christian 
people  these  are  living  questions,  since 
facts  that  lead  directly  toward  the  great 
change  are  pressing  into  common  knowl- 
edge and  cannot  be  ignored.  Many  are 
asking  these  questions  with  godly  sin- 
cerity though,  perhaps,  with  trembling; 
while  there  are  too  many  who  have  only 

' 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

indignation  for  the  change,  and  denun- 
ciation for  those  who  believe  it  to  be  of 
God. 

An  argumentative  answer  to  these 
questions  might  be  useful,  and  there  are 
men  to  make  it;  but  upon  such  a  prac- 
tical issue  the  best  witness  is  experience. 
What  if  a  man  who  has  made  the  change 
without  losing  his  faith  were  to  recount 
the  stages  of  his  journey  ?  What  if  he 
were  to  show  by  what  steps  he  had  come, 
and  offer  his  comrades  opportunity  to 
judge  whether  his  processes  had  been 
legitimate,  valid,  spiritual,  worthy  of  a 
child  of  God  ?  I  can  well  believe  that 
such  a  revelation  of  experience  might  be 
an  enlightening  and  encouraging  thing  to 
many  a  perplexed  and  anxious  soul. 
More  than  once  it  has  occurred  to  me 
that  if  I  were  to  tell  the  story  of  my  own 
life  in  the  single  character  of  a  student, 
lover,  and  user  of  the  Bible,  exhibiting 
the  mental  processes  through  which  the 


THE  MOTIVE 

change  in  my  own  attitude  toward  the 
Bible  has  come  to  pass,  I  might  be  offer- 
ing to  many  a  veritable  helping  hand. 
For  I  know  that  in  my  case  the  change 
has  been  an  honest  one,  and  am  equally 
sure  that  it  has  been  a  legitimate  one, 
which  I  could  not  have  refused  to  make 
without  being  false  to  the  true  light.  It 
sprang  out  of  the  very  necessities  of  my 
life  and  thought,  and  resulted  directly 
from  my  worthiest  work.  It  has  followed 
sound  processes,  and  stands  as  a  genuine 
element  in  Christian  experience.  It  was 
necessary,  it  was  Christian,  it  was  benefi- 
cent. Knowing  well  these  facts  about  it, 
I  am  inclined  to  place  my  experience 
with  the  Bible  at  the  disposal  of  any 
whom  it  may  help. 

No  man  can  tell  the  whole  of  such  a 
story,  and  yet  I  think  I  can  trace  my 
course  clearly  enough  through  the  years, 
and  trust  that  I  can  truthfully  represent 
the  way  in  which  the  Lord  my  God  has 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

led  me.  The  chief  influences  from  with- 
out, the  main  crises  in  thought,  and  the 
entrance  of  significant  results,  I  certainly 
can  recount,  and  I  can  exhibit  my  present 
position  in  contrast  with  the  old.  I  shall 
have  to  trace  my  journey  from  childhood 
to  the  present  day.  I  cannot  expect  that 
my  memories  of  personal  experience  will 
be  as  interesting  to  others  as  they  are  to 
me,  and  yet  I  have  confidence  that  my 
story  will  be  interesting,  for  it  will  pos- 
sess at  least  the  interest  that  belongs  to 
a  human  document.  If  my  progress  ap- 
pears to  have  been  more  or  less  irregular, 
halting,  inconsistent,  this  element  will  be 
no  mystery  to  any  who  understand  them- 
selves, for  it  belongs  to  human  nature. 
Yet  I  can  see,  and  hope  to  show,  that  by 
a  sure  and  unceasing  guidance  I  have 
been  brought  along  the  way  to  the  pres- 
ent goal. 

But  I  do  not  write  for  the  sake  of  the 
interest    that    an    autobiography    might 


THE  MOTIVE 

possess,  and  I  shall  record  nothing  that 
does  not  bear  directly  upon  my  relation 
to  the  Bible  and  the  progress  of  my  mind 
with  regard  to  it.  If  I  could  tell  the  story 
in  any  person  but  the  first  I  should  do  so, 
but  I  cannot.  In  no  sense  do  I  offer  the 
story  as  an  Apologia  pro  Vita  Med — for 
which  no  one  would  care;  but  I  do  wish 
it  to  stand  as  an  Apologia  for  the  kind  of 
experience  which  it  records.  That  ex- 
perience with  respect  to  the  Bible,  radical 
though  it  may  seem  to  some  readers,  and 
conservative  to  others,  I  desire  to  illustrate 
as  worthy  of  a  child  of  God,  and  to  com- 
mend to  all  my  brothers  in  God's  family. 
I  shall  accomplish  all  that  I  have  in  mind 
to  do  if  I  convince  my  readers  that  for 
reasons  that  are  sound  and  by  processes 
that  are  worthy  one  man  has  passed  over 
from  the  old  view  of  the  Bible  to  the  new. 
Yet  of  course  I  am  desiring  more  than 
this.  If  I  succeed  in  bringing  in  this  con- 
viction, I  shall  hope  for  fruits  following. 
[  9  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

I  shall  hope  that  my  experience  may  lead 
many  a  man  to  commit  himself  without 
fear  to  the  journey  that  I  have  been  led  to 
make,  assured  that  the  good  hand  of  his 
God  will  be  upon  him  as  he  moves  out 
into  the  broader  country. 


[   10  ] 


II 

THE  FIFTIES 

WHEN  I  speak  of  sixty  years  with  the 
Bible,  I  am  thinking  of  the  period  that 
extends   from   about  the   middle   of  the 
Nineteenth  Century  to  the  present  time. 
I  take  this  whole  period  for  my  field,  for 
the  reason  that  my  memory  covers  it  all. 
In  this  ninth  year  of  the  Twentieth  Cen- 
tury I  am  sixty-seven  years  old,  and  my 
remembrance  of  the  Bible  as  an  element 
in  my  life  runs  back  into  the  late  Forties. 
As   I   give   form    to   my    memories,    the 
decades  may  well  serve  me  for  divisions. 
Indeed  I  could  not  ask  for   better  divi- 
sions, for  each  one  of  them   has  in  my 
memory  a  character  of  its  own,  and  rep- 
resents a  distinct  stage  in  the  movement 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

of  my  mind  with  reference  to  the  Bible. 
With  the  first  decade  that  I  name,  the 
earliest  memories  may  be  gathered  in. 

I  cannot  remember  when  I  could  not 
read,  or  when  the  Bible  was  not  in  my 
hands  for  reading.  My  earliest  remem- 
brance of  it  brings  up  the  picture  of 
family  worship.  How  clear  it  is,  and  how 
calm  and  beautiful!  There  were  five  of 
us — father,  mother,  and  three  children,  of 
whom  I  was  the  second.  In  the  morn- 
ing, not  before  breakfast,  but  after  it,  we 
all  sat  down  with  Bibles  in  our  hands, 
and  read  in  turn  three  verses  apiece.  My 
verse  was  the  tenth,  and  when  we  read 
around  twice  the  twenty-fifth.  In  this 
manner  day  by  day  the  Bible  was  read 
through.  Genealogies  were  omitted,  and 
sometimes  we  passed  over  other  hard 
places.  I  think  the  New  Testament  may 
have  been  repeated,  while  the  Old  Testa- 
ment was  read  but  once.  But  on  prin- 
[  12  ] 


THE  FIFTIES 

ciple  the  reading  was  continuous  and 
impartial,  doing  justice  to  the  book  as  a 
whole.  There  was  very  little  explana- 
tion, usually  none.  The  reading  was  fol- 
lowed by  solemn  prayer,  all  kneeling. 
Whether  I  understood  it  or  not,  the  body 
of  the  Scriptures  was  thus  presented  to 
my  childish  mind,  and  with  or  without 
understanding  it  made  its  impression. 
The  mental  atmosphere  of  which  I  was 
conscious  was  one  of  solemnity  and  rev- 
erence. Of  course  I  sometimes  looked 
off  and  was  indifferent:  even  now  I  can 
hear  my  father's  voice  calling  me  back  to 
my  reading:  but  that  was  the  exception, 
not  the  rule.  It  was  assumed,  and  to  me 
was  real,  that  in  dealing  with  the  Bible 
I  had  to  do  with  God. 

Was  it  burdensome  and  hateful  ?  Did 
we  dread  the  morning  worship  ?  No. 
Probably  I  should  be  going  too  far  if  I 
said  that  we  children  actually  loved  the 
service,  but  I  know  that  for  my  part  I 
[  13  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

never  rebelled  against  or  wished  it  out  of 
the  way.  It  was  a  matter  of  course,  and 
a  good  matter  of  course,  a  proper  part  of 
the  day's  life.  No  hatred  of  the  Bible  ever 
came  from  it.  For  in  fact  the  use  of  the 
Bible  was  not  a  matter  of  the  morning 
worship  only :  it  was  a  part  of  the  family 
existence. 

My  father,  a  minister  of  the  gospel, 
was  constantly  in  communion  with  the 
book,  though  he  talked  little  of  his  work. 
He  was  not  a  highly  educated  man,  but 
he  was  a  man  of  sweet  reasonableness, 
and  his  theories  of  doctrine  were  tem- 
pered in  application  with  a  fine  practical 
wisdom.  I  suppose  he  must  have  had 
some  theory  of  inspiration,  but  he  never 
made  the  value  of  the  Bible  depend  upon 
it.  He  had  no  need  of  the  theory,  for  he 
was  building  upon  the  reality.  Here  was 
God's  own  message,  and  for  him,  and  for 
my  mother,  the  Bible  was  the  last  word. 
She,  reared  in  the  godliness  of  an  earlier 


THE  FIFTIES 

day,  carried  the  Bible  in  mind  and  heart. 
She  was  not  always  quoting  it,  but  for 
guidance  of  her  life,  and  of  ours,  it  was 
always  with  her.  It  is  true  that  she  was 
in  unconscious  bondage  because  the  Bible 
brought  her  the  spirit  of  Judaism  as  well 
as  the  Christian  faith,  and  not  until  old 
age  did  she  come  out  into  the  liberty  of 
the  children  of  God;  but  with  a  willing 
loyalty  she  held  the  Bible  as  her  law. 
Reverence  for  it  we  learned  from  both 
our  parents.  It  was  never  a  theme  for 
jests,  and  I  grew  up  with  almost  a  hor- 
ror of  joking  on  biblical  subjects.  About 
the  Bible  there  was  a  holy  air,  which  to 
us  children  was  attractive,  not  repellent. 
Bible  stories  we  early  learned — and  they 
were  true.  We  did  not  question  whether 
they  were  easily  believable  or  not,  or 
whether  they  were  worthy  of  God.  The 
bears  that  rent  the  children  for  mocking 
at  the  prophet,  and  the  thousands  struck 
dead  for  looking  into  the  ark  of  God,  were 

[    15    ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

as  real  to  us  as  Joseph  and  his  brothers, 
or  Ruth,  or  the  child  Jesus  in  the  temple. 
Morally,  all  was  on  one  level  to  us.  The 
ethical  questions  did  not  arise.  All  that 
the  Bible  said  of  God  or  men  was  true, 
all  that  God  or  good  men  did  was  right, 
and  the  stories  were  sacred. 

Upon  my  idea  of  the  Bible  the  Sunday- 
school  was  much  less  influential  than  the 
home.  My  teachers  had  but  the  hour 
with  me  while  my  parents  had  the  week, 
and  the  teachers  knew  much  less  about 
the  Bible.  Besides,  the  Sunday-school 
was  then  attempting  but  very  little.  The 
most  of  our  work  there  consisted  in  re- 
citing, or  failing  to  recite,  our  seven 
verses  a  week,  which  we  were  supposed 
to  commit  to  memory.  Our  lessons  were 
mainly  in  the  Gospels  and  the  book  of 
Acts.  Only  occasionally  did  we  touch 
the  Old  Testament:  not  at  all  I  think, 
except  here  and  there  in  the  Psalms. 
There  was  some  attempt  at  explanation, 


THE  FIFTIES 

and  sometimes  I  felt  that  the  teacher  was 
really  adding  something  to  my  knowl- 
edge of  the  lesson,  but  usually  the  con- 
tribution was  small.  Late  in  my  period 
we  used  Question-books:  I  wish  I  could 
see  one  of  them  now.  It  came  to  pass, 
however,  by  means  of  Sunday-school  and 
home  influence  combined,  that  large  por- 
tions of  Scripture  became  lodged  in  my 
memory.  Now  and  then  there  were 
competitions  in  memorizing,  and  I  once 
took  a  very  small  prize  in  one  of  them; 
but  that  was  a  foolish  practice,  for  we 
aimed  at  quantity,  and  promptly  lost 
our  gains.  The  regular  quiet  practice  in 
home  and  school  was  more  effective. 
Perhaps  there  was  a  foreglimpse  of  his- 
torical method  in  the  fact  that  the  first 
passage  that  I  ever  memorized  began 
with  "Now  when  Jesus  was  born,  in 
Bethlehem  of  Judea,  in  the  days  of  Herod 
the  king."  I  have  always  been  pro- 
foundly grateful  that  my  youthful  mem- 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

ory  stored  up  so  much  of  the  Bible,  and 
only  wish  it  had  done  more.  I  never  be- 
came weary  of  the  Sunday-school,  as  boys 
often  did,  but  I  think  that  in  the  later 
years  that  was  due  to  the  influence  of  a 
teacher.  The  school  did  not  retain  my 
affection  by  what  it  had  done  for  me, 
for  its  contribution  was  decidedly  a  minor 
one. 

No  one  could  believe  the  Bible  more 
thoroughly  than  I  did.  In  school  with 
me  when  I  was  perhaps  fifteen  years  old 
there  was  a  young  man  a  few  years  older 
who  had  the  name  of  being  an  infidel— 
so  easily  did  neighbors  classify  and  con- 
demn upon  slight  acquaintance.  Whether 
he  deserved  the  name  I  do  not  know :  he 
was  a  serious-minded  fellow,  much  in 
earnest,  and  with  at  least  a  glimmer  of 
some  large  ideas.  He  loved  to  talk,  and 
one  night  he  told  me  that  there  were  con- 
tradictions in  the  Bible  that  could  not  be 
reconciled.  This  I  could  not  admit,  for 
[  18  ] 


THE  FIFTIES 

it  would  mean  that  God  had  contradicted 
himself,  a  thing  incredible.  I  assured 
him  that  he  was  wrong,  and  told  him  to 
bring  me  his  contradictions,  and  I  would 
tell  him  how  they  were  to  be  explained. 
This  offer  was  less  conceited  than  it 
seems,  for  my  father  had  a  book  in  which 
a  man  of  high  repute  had  dealt  with  al- 
leged contradictions  in  the  Bible.  I  sup- 
posed that  of  course  so  great  a  man  must 
have  found  them  all  and  adjusted  them, 
and  had  no  doubt  that  I  should  find  the 
young  man's  difficulties  satisfactorily  at- 
tended to.  After  a  few  days  he  brought 
me  three  or  four  questions.  I  have  for- 
gotten what  they  were,  though  I  remem- 
ber how  the  paper  looked  upon  which 
he  had  written  them.  I  betook  myself  at 
once  to  my  book,  but  was  surprised  to 
find  that  these  particular  contradictions 
were  not  mentioned  there — not  one  of 
them.  Could  it  be  that  this  young  man 
had  hit  upon  difficulties  which  the  great 
[  19  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

man  had  not  noticed,  or  did  not  know 
how  to  solve  ?  I  came  away  with  a  first 
lesson  in  the  disappointingness  of  books, 
and  also  with  a  vague  feeling  that  there 
were  points  of  uncertainty  about  the 
Bible,  though  I  had  supposed  there  were 
none.  My  confidence  was  not  shaken, 
for  I  had  no  doubt  that  the  questions 
could  be  answered  and  the  honor  of  the 
Bible  be  completely  vindicated;  but 
I  could  not  solve  the  contradictions  at 
the  time,  and  knew  that  I  could  not. 
Nothing  more  was  ever  said  on  the  sub- 
ject, for  I  had  nothing  to  say,  and  the 
other  was  generous  enough  not  to  call  the 
matter  up — &  magnanimous  infidel.  I 
remember  the  episode  as  an  interesting 
one,  and  it  was  important,  too,  for  it  gave 
me  my  first  experimental  glimpse  of  a 
point  of  view  about  the  Bible  different 
from  my  own.  I  had  heard  of  sceptical 
questions,  and  supposed  that  these  be- 
longed to  that  class,  but  had  not  known 
[  20  ] 


THE  FIFTIES 

whether  any  of  them  had  any  shadow  of 
reason  on  their  side. 

When  I  was  sixteen  years  old  my  per- 
sonal religious  life  began.  The  blos- 
soming of  the  long-prepared  bud  came 
suddenly,  and  I  was  full  of  fresh  delight 
in  the  holy  interests  that  were  opened  to 
me.  Food  for  my  soul  I  knew  was  to  be 
found  in  the  Bible,  and  I  remember  on 
the  very  first  day  asking  my  father  what 
in  the  Bible  I  should  read.  Wisely  or 
not,  he  referred  me  to  the  eighth  chapter 
of  Romans.  I  remember  where  I  sat  to 
read  it,  and  what  Bible  I  read  it  in.  I 
remember  the  eager  expectation  with 
which  I  began.  I  remember,  too,  the 
effect.  My  soul  was  fed  with  heavenly 
food.  There  were  solid  and  splendid  ex- 
pressions of  truth  there,  so  clear  and 
glorious  that  I  could  not  miss  them,  and 
so  harmonious  with  my  new  life  that  they 
could  not  fail  of  entrance.  Some  of  the 
[  21  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

divinest  words  in  the  world  found  me  that 
day,  and  entered  into  the  stock  of  my 
life.  Nevertheless  I  rose  from  the  read- 
ing with  a  faint  shadow  of  disappoint- 
ment. Those  magnificent  lights  of  God 
seemed  to  shine  out  through  clouds. 
There  were  matters  in  the  chapter  that 
I  did  not  grasp,  and  there  were  forms  of 
thought  and  modes  of  presentation  that 
did  not  appeal  to  me.  The  Jewish  law 
in  which  the  apostle  had  been  reared  was 
real  to  him  when  he  wrote,  but  it  was  not 
real  to  me,  and  his  references  to  it,  which 
entered  into  the  very  substance  of  his 
discourse,  did  not  seem  to  belong  to  me, 
or  to  bring  me  any  message.  The  glories 
of  the  Christian  life  stood  before  me  in 
this  splendid  passage,  but  why  should 
there  be  so  much  more  besides  ? 

I  did  not  exactly  state  this  to  myself, 
but  the  two  feelings  were  mingled  in  my 
mind.  I  had  never  been  taught  any 
rigid  theory  of  the  equality  of  all  Scrip- 


THE  FIFTIES 

ture,  but  the  assumption  that  the  whole 
Bible  was  equally  from  God  had  carried 
with  it  the  assumption  that  any  part  of 
it  would  be  found  profitable  for  the  soul. 
I  knew  indeed,  in  a  general  way,  that 
Leviticus,  for  example,  was  not  so  profit- 
able as  Luke;  but  when  I  was  sent  to  a 
great  Christian  passage  like  the  eighth 
chapter  of  Romans  I  did  not  suppose 
that  there  would  be  any  drawback  upon 
its  availability,  but  expected  to  find  food 
in  every  thought.  Was  it  all  my  ignorance 
that  I  did  not  find  so  much  ?  At  any  rate 
I  learned,  practically  though  still  inar- 
ticulately, at  the  very  first  endeavor  of 
the  new  hunger,  that  not  everything  in 
the  Bible  is  equally  available  as  food  for 
the  soul. 

I  have  never  since  judged  that  the  dif- 
ference was  due  to  my  youthful  ignorance 
alone.  Of  course  a  part  of  it  was,  and 
I  have  since  seen  glories  in  that  passage 
that  I  could  not  discern  that  day.  But  I 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

have  learned  that  some  of  Paul's  connec- 
tions for  the  gospel  may  have  seemed  to 
him  and  his  first  readers  to  be  a  part  of 
the  gospel  itself  and  to  have  like  force 
with  it,  while  they  could  never  hold  that 
rank  with  me,  trained  in  so  different  a 
world.  No  wonder  that  the  ancient  law 
was  not  alive  to  me,  for  I  had  never  lived 
with  it  but  only  heard  of  it.  I  think  that 
my  young  Christian  appetite  was  healthy, 
and  seized  upon  the  rich  and  abundant 
food  that  lay  before  me,  and  passed  by 
what  it  could  not  assimilate,  as  it  had 
a  right  to  do.  And  I  can  well  understand 
how  a  writing  of  the  first  century  may 
have  contained  much  that  a  modern 
Christian  appetite  can  never  assimilate 
as  genuine  Christian  food. 

Whether  I  am  right  or  wrong  in  this,  it 
is  certain  that  from  that  day  began  the 
selection  of  my  personal  Bible.  From 
day  to  day  and  from  year  to  year  I  went 
on  finding  what  in  the  Bible  was  precious 
[  24  ] 


THE  FIFTIES 

to  me,  and  making  it  my  own.  Some- 
times this  Bible  of  mine  within  the  Bible 
has  been  growing  larger  and  my  proprie- 
torship in  it  has  been  becoming  more 
positive  and  intense.  Sometimes  it  has 
grown  smaller,  through  the  dropping  out 
of  something  that  was  discovered  to  be 
less  Christlike  than  I  had  taken  it  to  be. 
This  is  no  process  peculiar  to  me.  All 
Christians  gather  out  their  personal  Bi- 
bles to  feed  upon,  all  smaller  than  the 
great  book,  and  for  them  more  available. 
•  I  am  only  noting  that  my  work  of  selec- 
tion was  going  on,  though  I  did  not  yet 
understand  what  I  was  doing,  from  the 
very  first  day  of  my  Christian  life.  My 
childhood  with  the  Bible  was  ended,  and 
I  was  entering  upon  the  work  of  a  man. 
Let  it  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the 
main  work  of  those  early  days  was  rejec- 
tion, or  anything  that  resembled  it.  No :  it 
was  recognition,  selection,  assimilation.  I 
was  taking  food,  not  refusing  it.  I  well 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE   BIBLE 

remember  the  keen  delight  with  which  in 
those  days  I  was  taking  to  myself  what  I 
found  precious  in  the  holy  word. 

Scarcely  had  this  personal  dealing  with 
the  Bible  begun  when  another  significant 
experience  appeared.  Almost  immedi- 
ately I  encountered  my  first  real  ques- 
tioning about  the  relation  of  the  Bible  to 
science.  Thus  early  in  life  was  this  great 
question  brought  home  to  me.  At  the 
time  I  was  studying  Geology  in  a  secon- 
dary school.  Our  text-book  was  the  work 
of  two  Christian  men  collaborating,  who 
wrote  in  a  reverent  spirit.  They  made 
the  geological  story  absolutely  plain  and 
convincing,  but  were  anxious  not  to  dis- 
turb a  student's  confidence  in  the  Bible. 
At  the  end  we  found  a  chapter  in  which 
they  compared  the  testimony  of  Geology 
with  that  of  Genesis  with  regard  to  the 
creation  of  the  world.  There  I  became 
acquainted  with  the  chief  endeavors  to 
[  26  ] 


THE  FIFTIES 

reconcile  the  two  records,  and  was  en- 
couraged to  believe  that  sound  recon- 
ciliation was  quite  possible.  But  of 
course  I  had  learned  earlier  in  the  book 
that  the  doctrine  of  an  earth  only  six 
thousand  years  old,  which  I  had  always 
understood  the  Bible  to  teach,  was  for- 
ever irreconcilable  with  Geology  and 
impossible  of  belief.  Facts  enough  to 
convince  me  of  that  had  already  been 
presented,  and  I  was  convinced.  Science 
had  demonstrated  that  the  earth  was 
ancient,  and  it  was  useless  to  object.  The 
Bible  appeared  to  teach  otherwise,  but 
we  must  have  misunderstood  the  Bible. 
Some  other  interpretation  of  it  must  be 
possible,  and  must  be  sought.  So  the 
text-book  argued,  and  I  agreed  thereto. 
Here,  it  is  true,  arose  the  question 
whether  a  Christian  may  rightly  allow 
science  to  interpret  for  him  the  word  of 
God,  or  even  to  call  for  a  new  interpre- 
tation of  it.  With  my  new  love  and  rev- 
[27  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

erence  for  the  Bible,  I  could  not  fail  to  be 
interested  in  this  inquiry.  My  father, 
with  the  reverent  caution  of  the  older 
generation,  decidedly  hesitated  here, 
thinking  that  the  revelation  of  God  must 
be  interpreted  by  religion  and  by  that 
alone.  The  Bible  stood  by  itself,  and 
must  be  interpreted  in  its  own  light. 
But  though  I  appreciated  the  motive  of 
this  reasoning,  I  found  myself  yielding  to 
facts,  and  allowing  science,  not  my  read- 
ing of  the  Bible,  to  tell  me  what  I  should 
believe  about  the  age  of  the  earth.  In 
this  my  opening  mind  was  opening  aright. 
But  I  never  supposed  for  a  moment  that 
science  was  taking  the  place  of  the  Bible 
as  the  decisive  witness:  I  supposed  that 
it  was  only  interpreting  the  Bible. 

As  to  the  creation  itself,  my  authors 
told  me  of  Hugh  Miller's  harmonizing 
theory,  then  current — the  brilliant  poetic 
fancy  of  a  series  of  visions  supernaturally 
opened  to  the  mind  of  Moses,  showing 
[  28  ] 


THE  FIFTIES 

him  the  course  of  God's  creative  work, 
and  successively  described  by  him  in  the 
first  chapter.  But  they  did  not  urge  this 
view  upon  me,  since  they  could  not  say 
that  the  order  of  the  visions  corresponded 
to  the  order  of  the  geological  facts.  In 
other  words,  they  did  not  hold  that  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis  agreed  with  the 
geological  record.  Their  theory  was  that 
the  sublime  first  verse,  "In  the  beginning 
God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth," 
announced  the  unimaginably  ancient  fact 
of  the  primeval  creation,  that  between 
that  verse  and  the  second  there  lay  a 
great  pause,  or  chasm,  covering  the  entire 
geological  period,  and  that  then  the  chap- 
ter went  on  to  describe  an  actual  six  days' 
work  of  God  upon  the  earth  at  the  end 
of  that  period,  "fitting  it  up  to  be  the 
abode  of  man" — whatever  that  might 
mean.  This  sounds  impossible  enough 
at  present,  and  yet  it  is  as  good  as  any  of 
the  attempts  to  make  Genesis  and  Geol- 
[  29  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

ogy  agree.  This  I  accepted  at  the  time 
as  a  satisfactory  explanation,  and  went 
my  way  untroubled  by  conflict.  The 
Bible  had  been  taken  out  of  the  way  of 
the  facts. 

At  the  time  I  could  not  know  how 
much  this  meant.  But  the  fact  was  that 
I  had  consented  to  submit  one  item  of 
knowledge  with  which  the  Bible  dealt  to 
another  authority  instead  of  the  Bible. 
At  the  dictation  of  scientific  facts  I  had 
accepted  a  new  meaning  for  the  initial 
chapter;  that  is,  I  had  allowed  the  Bible 
to  be  altered  for  me  to  suit  the  facts. 

This  I  had  done,  and  happily  I  did 
not  know  that  I  had  done  anything  of 
serious  importance.  If  I  had  known, 
I  should  have  been  troubled.  But  I  sim- 
ply adopted  the  new  meaning  into  my 
sacred  book,  and  understood  the  Bible  in 
its  proper  meaning  to  stand  as  a  witness 
to  the  view  of  the  facts  which  I  had  ob- 
tained. No  shadow  of  change  had  falleA 
[  30  ] 


THE  FIFTIES 

upon  my  confidence  in  the  Bible,  but 
here  was  a  first  step  in  a  new  manner  of 
understanding  it  and  using  it.  And  at 
present  any  one  can  see  that  this  was  a 
part  of  the  work  of  the  coming  age. 
When  this  was  done,  old  things  were 
passing  away. 

Owing  to  the  religious  character  of  my 
early  training,  my  lot  was  happier  than 
that  of  another  youth  who  long  afterward 
told  me  his  experience.  A  few  years  later 
than  this  he  entered  college,  and  went  on 
the  first  Sunday  to  the  students'  Bible 
class.  The  teacher  began  with  the  Bible 
at  the  beginning,  and  in  that  first  hour 
my  friend  learned  for  the  first  time  that 
there  were  people  who  believed  that 
Genesis  and  Geology  did  not  agree.  By 
the  discovery  he  was  utterly  broken  up. 
Geology  was  a  science  of  facts,  and  were 
facts  against  the  Bible  ?  So  external  and 
so  loose  was  the  grasp  of  his  mind  upon 
the  Bible  that  under  this  shock  he  lost  it 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

altogether,  and  years  passed  before  he 
got  it  back.  His  Christian  faith,  too, 
suffered  a  like  eclipse.  Because  I  had 
been  better  trained  than  he,  and  was 
holding  to  the  Bible  in  a  more  rational 
confidence,  I  was  led  through  this  first 
stage  of  revolution  without  a  break  with 
the  past  or  a  shock  of  fear  for  the  future. 
My  mind  was  simply  opening  to  the  facts 
that  must  be  received.  Indeed,  I  most 
thankfully  acknowledge  that  this  whole 
story  which  I  am  to  record  is  a  story  of 
quiet  development,  with  very  little  of 
sharp  struggles  and  alarms. 


Ill 

THE  SIXTIES 

VERY  early  in  the  Sixties,  near  the  end 
of  my  college  course,  I  pledged  myself  in 
spirit  to  the  work  of  the  Christian  minis- 
try, and  before  very  long  I  was  a  student 
in  a  Theological  Seminary.  There  our 
main  work  was  biblical.  We  had  a  course 
in  History,  and  one  in  Systematic  The- 
ology, and  a  little  work  in  the  practical 
topics;  but  our  chief  text-book  was  the 
Bible,  and  the  department  of  Interpre- 
tation was  the  most  exacting  of  them  all. 
Not  that  there  was  any  formal  appoint- 
ment to  this  effect;  but  this  was  in  har- 
mony with  the  view  of  the  ministry  that 
makes  the  minister  to  be  first  and  chiefly, 
if  not  solely,  an  interpreter  of  the  Scrip- 
[  33  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

tures,  a  view  that  was  largely  accepted  in 
the  churches  which  the  Seminary  served. 

I  had  not  been  doing  much  with  my 
Bible  during  my  years  in  college,  but 
turned  to  it  now  with  new  enthusiasm 
under  a  new  influence.  This,  happily, 
was  the  personal  inspiration  of  a  teacher. 

He  was  a  good  scholar,  though  I  do  not 
know  that  he  was  an  exceptionally  great 
one.  But  I  do  know  that  he  was  a  man 
/  of  strong  convictions,  of  a  most  beautiful 
devoutness,  of  absolute  sincerity,  and  of 
perfectly  unconquerable  industry.  His 
permanent  physical  condition  was  such 
as  would  have  many  men  idle  and  most 
men  easy,  but  his  holy  resolution  held 
him  to  an  amount  of  work  that  put  his 
students  to  perpetual  shame.  He  did  not 
affect  every  one  as  he  affected  me,  but  to 
me  he  was  simply  irresistible.  His  Chris- 
tian character  held  my  love  and  admira- 
tion, his  scholarship  commanded  my  re- 
spect, and  his  industry  was  contagious. 
[  34  ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

What  I  could  do  I  had  to  do,  while  I  was 
with  him. 

What  was  his  aim  ?  His  aim  was  to 
bring  out  the  meaning  of  the  Bible,  and 
to  train  us  in  ability  to  do  the  same.  For 
him  the  voice  of  the  Bible  was  the  voice 
of  God,  and  therefore  he  bent  his  ear  to 
listen.  Since  the  book  brought  him  the 
divine  testimony  concerning  God  and 
Christ,  the  great  salvation  and  the  com- 
mon duties,  he  was  its  unweariable  stu- 
dent, judging  no  labor  too  great  if  he 
could  understand  the  message.  I  do  not 
remember  what  he  thought  of  inspiration, 
if  I  ever  knew,  but  I  saw  for  myself  what 
he  thought  of  the  word  of  God.  The 
sacredness  of  the  study  dominated  every- 
thing. He  was  an  enthusiastic  believer 
in  textual  criticism,  and  required  us  to 
make  use  of  Tischendorf  s  text,  then  the 
best  in  existence,  and  all  for  a  religious 
reason.  In  reading  the  message  of  God 
we  must  have  before  us  as  nearly  as  pos- 
[  35  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

sible  the  very  words  that  were  originally 
penned.  This  was  not  merely  a  privilege 
that  was  open  to  us  in  modern  time,  but 
an  absolute  duty  in  the  sight  of  God.  To 
use  an  antiquated  and  inferior  text  when 
a  better  was  within  our  reach  would  be 
a  sin.  From  the  same  devout  point  of 
view  he  gave  his  strength  to  exegesis, 
affectionately  tracing  out  the  inspired 
thought,  and  laboring  to  know  the  very 
thing  that  the  divine  Spirit  had  led  the 
writers  to  express. 

His  influence  and  example  made  me 
a  Bible  student.  Our  outfit  of  helps  was 
pitiably  meagre,  but  with  such  as  we  had 
I  set  myself  to  the  work.  He  taught  us 
the  right  use  of  commentaries  and  the 
like,  insisting  that  whatever  helps  we 
might  use,  our  conclusions  as  to  the 
meaning  must  be  in  an  honest  sense  our 
own.  We  must  not  shirk  the  responsi- 
bility of  judging  what  our  Bible  means. 
I  learned  that  lesson  early,  to  my  lifelong 
[  36  ]  ' 


THE  SIXTIES 

advantage.  He  made  it  impossible  for 
me  to  shoulder  off  upon  commentators 
my  duty  of  understanding  the  Bible. 
One  of  his  exhortations  abides  in  mem- 
ory: "Let  no  word  of  man  come  between 
your  soul  and  the  pure  word  of  God." 
It  was  because  in  the  Bible  he  found  the 
pure  word  of  God  that  he  would  purge  the 
text  of  errors,  and  let  commentaries  be 
helpers  only,  and  bring  his  own  soul  to 
reverent  and  joyful  communion  with  the 
divine  utterance  in  the  sacred  book.  I 
remember  also  the  joyful  zest  with  which 
he  once  said  to  me  that  Christianity  calls 
for  no  illegitimate  intellectual  processes, 
and  has  place  for  none. 

It  was  under  such  influence  that  I  now 
went  to  work.  Of  course  my  work  was 
youthful  and  crude,  but  it  was  sincere. 
Under  my  teacher's  influence  I  trained 
myself  in  paraphrasing — a  very  useful 
method  for  a  student — expressing  in  my 
[  37  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

own  words  with  all  attainable  precision 
the  author's  continuous  thought.  In  this 
there  was  call  for  the  investigation  of 
every  word,  and  for  the  most  careful 
judgment  as  to  structure,  connection,  and 
purpose.  At  various  times  in  the  course 
of  my  life  I  have  put  large  labor  into  such 
paraphrasing  of  parts  of  the  Bible,  and 
consider  the  labor  extremely  well  invested. 
In  the  student  period  I  was  trying  to 
master  the  art  of  understanding  the  Bible, 
and  was  making  a  beginning  in  the  actual 
work  of  interpreting  it,  gathering  into  my 
storehouse  as  well  as  I  could,  the  contents 
of  the  divine  revelation.  I  conceived  of 
all  divine  revelation  as  contained  in  the 
Bible,  and  was  doing  what  I  could  toward 
making  the  wealth  of  it  my  own.  I  was 
happy  in  my  studies,  the  best  that  was  in 
me  going  out  in  search  of  the  truth  of  God. 
Much  Scripture,  as  I  have  said,  was 
already  in  my  memory,  and  now  I  was 
obtaining  command  of  more.  With  the 
[  38  ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

contents  of  the  Bible  I  was  becoming  more 
largely  acquainted,  to  my  lasting  advan- 
tage. With  the  substance  of  the  New 
Testament,  both  in  English  and  in  Greek, 
very  few  students  are  as  familiar  as  I  was 
when  I  left  the  Seminary.  With  the  Old 
Testament  I  never  did  quite  so  well,  though 
I  was  much  at  home  with  it,  but  the  New 
Testament  I  had  at  my  fingers'  ends.  A 
little  later  I  could  give  chapter  and  verse 
on  call,  for  all  the  great  passages  and  a 
host  of  the  minor  ones,  and  could  iden- 
tify a  verse  when  the  first  Greek  words  of 
it  were  read  to  me.  Later  still  I  knew  out 
of  what  stratum  of  thought  or  group  of 
conceptions  in  the  New  Testament  any 
given  expression  came — a  knowledge  far 
more  valuable  than  that  of  verse  and 
chapter.  As  for  my  familiarity  with  the 
New  Testament  in  my  student  days,  it 
was  unusual,  but  it  was  by  no  means  ex- 
cessive. I  think  every  theologue  should 
thoroughly  master  his  New  Testament  by 
[  39  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

way  of  familiarity,  not  neglecting  the  Old, 
while  he  is  still  a  student. 

In  such  an  atmosphere  it  naturally 
came  to  pass  that  in  general  theological 
thought  I  was  a  firm  biblicist.  I  remem- 
ber how  my  feeling  toward  the  Bible  in- 
fluenced my  feeling  about  Systematic 
Theology.  My  teacher  in  that  depart- 
ment was  a  man  of  different  mould  of 
mind  from  my  teacher  in  the  Bible.  He 
ranged  more  widely,  he  was  more  mys- 
tical in  his  vein,  and  he  was  more  of  a 
philosopher,  thinking  for  himself  and 
outreaching  far  and  wide.  One  was 
searching  in  the  Bible  to  discover  the 
truth  of  God;  the  other  was  using  truth 
that  he  had  found  there  or  anywhere  else, 
in  the  broad  excursions  of  a  reverently 
exploring  spirit.  To  this  speculative 
work  of  the  theologian  I  felt  deep  objec- 
tion, because  it  was  not  biblical  enough: 
it  was  not  built  on  proof-texts,  or  but- 
tressed by  them,  as  I  thought  it  ought  to 
[  40  ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

be :  it  was  too  speculative,  I  thought,  and 
grounded  elsewhere  than  in  the  word  of 
God.  In  this  judgment  I  was  sincere,  but  I 
was  wrong.  The  theologian  was  using 
Scripture  as  it  had  been  assimilated  by  his 
mind  and  yielded  him  its  teaching,  a  proc- 
ess that  I  could  not  then  understand.  The 
Bible  inspired  his  theology:  I  thought  it/ 
ought  to  dictate  it.  His  method  was  legiti- 
mate and  truly  Christian,  and  to  his  large 
uplifting  influence,  which  I  understood 
better  in  later  years,  I  am  indebted  no  less 
than  to  the  influence  that  led  me  at  first 
to  be  suspicious  of  it.  In  my  day  his 
teaching  power  was  comparatively  un- 
developed, but  in  later  years  he  became  a 
teacher  of  magnificent  inspiration. 

From  neither  of  the  two  men  did  I  get 
any  clear  theory  of  the  inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures,  though  I  studied  the  theories 
that  were  current.  I  cannot  say  that  I 
ever  really  believed  in  the  ancient  theory 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

of  dictation,  or  verbal  inspiration,  though 
of  course  I  inherited  the  effects  of  ances- 
tral belief  in  it;  but  in  the  course  of  my 
studies  I  became  aware  that  it  could  not 
possibly  be  true.  Later,  in  the  early 
Seventies,  I  listened  to  a  strenuous  and 
elaborate  defence  of  verbal  inspiration  by 
a  minister  of  high  repute,  which  gave  the 
doctrine  its  death-blow  for  me.  With 
such  defences,  it  was  doomed.  But  al- 
ready it  was  outside  of  my  world.  It  was 
impossible  that  that  theory  should  be 
really  alive  in  the  presence  of  my  studies, 
which  rested  upon  textual  criticism  with 
its  uncertainty  as  to  the  very  words,  and 
constantly  called  my  attention  to  the 
large  and  living  human  element  in  the 
Scriptures.  Nevertheless,  my  view  of  in- 
spiration was  no  dead  letter.  I  looked 
upon  the  Bible  as  so  inspired  by  God  that 
its  writers  were  not  capable  of  error.  I 
did  not  feel  myself  at  liberty  to  dissent 
from  its  teachings,  to  doubt  the  accuracy 
[  42  ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

of  its  statements,  or  to  question  the  va- 
lidity of  its  reasonings.  This  was  not  the 
result  of  a  theory  of  the  manner  of  inspira- 
tion: it  was  my  working  principle  in  use 
of  the  Bible,  inherited  from  earlier  times. 
Anywhere  else,  I  should  not  have  taken 
seriously  the  great  age  of  the  patriarchs; 
but  since  it  was  written  in  the  Bible  I 
thought  that  nothing  but  scepticism  would 
doubt  it.  If  I  doubted  that,  I  might  doubt 
anything  that  was  written  there.  So  I 
believed  that  Methuselah  lived  his  nine 
hundred  and  sixty-nine  years.  The 
hand  of  Paul,  I  saw,  lay  heavily  upon  the 
activities  of  Christian  women,  but  I  dis- 
trusted the  arguments  by  which  some 
were  endeavoring  to  lift  it  off — or  rather, 
I  distrusted  the  entire  business  of  tam- 
pering with  such  matters.  Paul  was  an 
inspired  man,  and  his  prohibitions  were 
not  to  be  set  aside.  As  a  witness  to  truth, 
Paul,  or  any  other  inspired  writer,  was  the 
same  as  God.  Hence  the  presumption  was 
[  43  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

that  his  commands  were  universal  and  per- 
manent in  their  scope,  and  to  argue  these 
prohibitions  down  to  a  local  and  tempo- 
rary application  in  Corinth  seemed  to  me  to 
belittle  the  Bible  and  degrade  it  from  its 
high  estate.  God's  written  requirements 
were  presumably  universal.  And  of  this 
reasoning  I  do  not  think  so  badly,  even 
now.  If  I  still  held  the  same  premises,  I 
am  inclined  to  think  that  I  should  be 
compelled  to  hold  the  same  conclusions. 
As  to  the  character  of  inspiration, 
however,  I  remember  the  rising  of  one 
rather  startling  question.  No  one  heard 
it  but  myself,  but  I  heard  it  and  it  went 
far  into  my  mind.  In  the  Sixties  the  fa- 
mous book  called  "Essays  and  Reviews, 
by  Clergymen  of  the  Church  of  England," 
created  a  stir  that  now  seems  incredible. 
At  present  it  would  seem  gentle  as  a  sum- 
mer's breeze,  but  then  it  was  a  veritable 
storm-centre  in  English  theology.  I  did 
not  read  the  book,  but  I  picked  it  up  one 
t  44  ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

day  in  the  library,  and  read  the  statement, 
in  effect,  that  any  theory  of  inspiration, 
or  divine  influence  in  writing,  that  can  be 
true  of  the  Bible  must  be  true  of  all  parts 
of  the  Bible:  it  must  account  for  the 
qualities  of  Judges  as  well  as  of  John,  of 
Esther  as  well  as  of  Isaiah,  of  the  Song 
of  Solomon  as  well  as  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  of  the  Apocalypse  as  well  as  of 
the  Gospel  of  Luke.  That  startled  me, 
and  I  laid  down  the  book  with  the  feeling 
that  I  had  read  enough  for  once.  "Of 
course  that  is  true,"  I  said  to  myself,  for 
there  was  nothing  else  to  say.  The  state- 
ment proved  itself.  A  good  theory  of  in- 
spiration must  be  good  all  round,  fitting 
all  the  inspired  writings.  But  before  I 
had  closed  the  book  the  conviction  had 
flashed  upon  me  that  I  knew  no  theory 
of  inspiration  that  could  stand  this  rea- 
sonable test.  The  theories  that  I  had 
studied  might  account  for  some  books, 
but  were  transparently  impossible  for 
[  45  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

others.  They  were  framed  to  account  for  the 
highest  quality  of  the  Bible  in  its  noblest 
parts,  and  assume  that  that  high  quality 
ran  through  the  whole — which  it  does  not. 
I  felt  pretty  certain  also  that  it  would  be 
impossible  to  construct  a  theory  of  inspira- 
tion that  would  meet  this  reasonable  de- 
mand, if  inspiration  was  to  bear  anything 
more  than  a  very  general  and  indefinite 
meaning.  I  was  not  able  to  imagine  a  di- 
vine influence  in  writing  that  would  equally 
account  for  the  composition  of  Galatians, 
Proverbs,  Job,  and  the  Gospels,  to  say 
nothing  of  other  books.  I  went  away  from 
the  library  "under  conviction"  that  these 
things  were  so.  No  immediate  results  fol- 
lowed upon  this  silent  episode,  but  it  had 
its  lasting  influence  upon  my  life.  Strong 
confidence  in  definite  theories  of  inspira- 
tion was  not  to  be  expected  of  me  after  that. 

Although  I  did  not  in  my  student  days 
depart    from    my    inherited    manner    of 
[  46  ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

dealing  with  the  Scriptures,  I  can  now 
see  plainly  that  suggestions  of  the  his- 
torical method,  unnamed  and  unrecog- 
nized, were  creeping  in.  My  studies  in 
Theology  and  History  were  preparing  me 
for  larger  methods  though  I  did  not  know 
it  yet,  and  so  was  my  work  upon  the  Bible 
itself.  '.Textual  criticism  is  a  revolu- 
tionary thing:  I  have  often  wondered 
that  advocates  of  verbal  inspiration  were 
so  tolerant  of  it.  If  we  cannot  be  per- 
fectly sure  of  the  very  words  that  first 
were  written,  we  cannot  claim  that  any 
text  in  our  possession  is  verbally  inspired; 
and  as  for  the  idea  that  there  was  a  ver- 
bally inspired  and  faultless  text  whose 
faultlessness  was  lost  as  soon  as  it  was 
copied,  the  wonder  is  that  any  one  ever 
took  it  seriously  at  all.  Exegesis  is  revo- 
lutionary, too,  and  quite  incompatible 
with  permanent  confidence  in  verbal  in- 
spiration. The  practice  of  tracing  out 
each  writer's  thought,  with  earnest  en- 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

deavor  to  do  justice  to  all  his  peculiarities 
of  every  kind,  is  enough  to  bring  other 
ideas  of  inspiration  into  view.^  And  since 
I  was  bending  my  attention  to  exegesis 
based  on  textual  criticism,  these  things 
were  certain  to  come  home  to  me.  I  re- 
member also  certain  touches  of  unreality 
in  some  work  of  interpretation  that  I  wit- 
nessed. My  teacher  once  made  strenuous 
efforts  to  show  that  certain  words  of  Paul 
did  not  bear  an  extremely  unorthodox 
meaning  which  they  very  naturally  sug- 
gested. I  listened  somewhat  wondering 
whether  Paul  needed  thus  to  be  steered 
into  orthodoxy,  if  I  may  so  speak;  think- 
ing also  that  there  was  some  trace  of 
special  pleading  in  the  arguments  in 
which  my  teacher  was  so  sincere.  He 
felt  that  Paul  could  not  be  unorthodox, 
and  defended  him  in  view  of  this  passage 
by  means  of  interpretation  that  needed 
itself  to  be  defended.  I  remember  also 
how  one  day  I  brought  in  my  own  interpre- 
[  48  ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

tation  of  some  important  verses,  which 
appeared  to  me  to  do  justice  to  the  pas- 
sage, but  did  not  reach  the  denomina- 
tional conclusion  that  was  expected.  I 
afterward  reconsidered  the  work,  with  a 
different  result,  probably  more  correct; 
but  I  well  remember  the  dismay  with  which 
my  first  result  was  greeted,  by  teacher  and 
by  class,  and  my  own  feeling  that  their 
dismay  or  their  approval  ought  not  to  in- 
fluence me  as  an  interpreter.  I  remember, 
too,  how  a  feeling  of  incredulity  came  over 
me  when  I  was  told  that  the  Congrega- 
tional church  polity  was  revealed,  and 
therefore  bore  exclusively  the  full  author- 
ity of  God.  Of  course  I  knew  that  this 
was  the  theory,  though  I  did  not  then 
know  how  confidently  the  same  theory  was 
invoked  in  support  of  the  other  polities. 
But  it  seemed  improbable  that  all  non- 
congregational  Christians  were  thus  per- 
manently and  incurably  unchurched  by  a 
word  from  heaven  two  thousand  years  ago. 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

On  the  whole,  I  love  to  recall  my  stu- 
dent days  in  connection  with  the  Bible, 
'  because  I  was  then  in  the  freshness  and 
sincerity  of  youth,  and  was  taking  genu- 
ine delight  in  worthy  work. 

Before  the  Sixties  were  half  spent  I 
was  settled  in  a  quiet  parish,  and  using 
the  Bible  in  the  honest  and  blundering 
V  manner  of  a  beginner  in  the  ministry. 
Now  came  sermons,  and  therefore  texts. 
Of  course  it  took  years  for  my  young  ideal 
of  exegesis  to  work  out  into  anything  like 
good  practice,  and  I  cannot  claim  that 
my  handling  of  texts  from  week  to  week 
in  my  first  period  was  of  a  high  order. 
I  remember  samples  of  it  upon  which 
I  look  back  with  wonder.  Yet  I  was  loy- 
ally at  work.  I  had  not  many  books,  and 
when  I  received  a  present  of  twenty-five 
dollars  for  the  benefit  of  my  library,  I  in- 
vested it  all  in  books  of  the  exegetical 
type.  This  was  much  to  the  disgust  of  a 
[  50  ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

retired  minister  in  my  parish,  who  did  not 
think  much  of  "notes"  on  the  Bible,  and 
would  have  guided  me  in  a  more  specu- 
lative direction.  But  I  have  never  re- 
gretted my  choice.  I  felt  that  a  minister 
ought  first  of  all  to  be  a  Bible  man,  and 
chose  accordingly. 

As  to  my  studies,  I  found,  like  many 
a  graduate,  that  though  I  could  study 
very  well  in  the  routine  of  a  school  and 
at  the  suggestion  of  teachers,  I  did  not 
know  how  to  set  myself  at  work  to  very 
good  advantage  when  I  was  left  alone. 
Hence  my  studying  was  not  very  well 
organized,  and  had  slowly  to  settle  down 
into  better  method  and  efficiency.  At 
first  I  wasted  time  from  not  knowing 
how  to  direct  myself.  But  I  was  helped 
in  many  ways  by  one  enterprise  of  that 
first  pastorate,  which  is  to  me  as  mem- 
orable as  it  was  audacious  at  the  time. 
Under  some  now-forgotten  suggestion, 
I  asked  my  people  to  read  the  Bible 
I  51  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

through  with  me  in  a  year,  three  chapters 
a  day  and  five  on  Sunday,  and  promised 
them  help  from  the  pulpit  as  the  reading 
went  on.  A  good  number  accepted  the 
invitation,  and  though  some  fell  out  by 
the  way,  Bible  reading  was  a  prominent 
feature  in  the  life  of  the  congregation  in 
that  year.  I  accompanied  it  with  a  course 
of  Bible  sermons,  as  I  called  them,  each 
treating  of  a  book  in  the  Bible,  or  of  a 
group  of  books.  Of  these  sermons  there 
were  between  forty  and  fifty  in  all.  An 
accidental  interruption  carried  the  course 
over  beyond  the  year,  and  so  it  happened 
that  the  latter  part  of  the  New  Testament 
was  treated  a  little  more  fully  than  it  would 
otherwise  have  been.  I  had  an  available 
storehouse  of  information  in  "Smith's 
Bible  Dictionary,"  which  was  then  new 
and  well  up  to  date.  The  sermons  dif- 
fered among  themselves  in  method,  but  in 
general  they  contained  such  information 
as  I  could  give  about  authorship,  date 
[  52  ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

and  kindred  matters:  I  spoke  also  of 
purpose  and  historical  connections,  and 
endeavored  to  represent  the  religious 
value  and  significance.  In  a  word,  I 
sought  to  provide  such  information  as 
would  make  the  Bible  most  intelligible 
and  useful  to  the  reader,  aid  to  the  relig- 
ious use  being  quite  as  prominent  in  my 
mind  as  help  to  the  intellectual  under- 
standing. I  have  not  seen  the  sermons 
for  many  years,  though  I  think  they  still 
exist.  Certainly  I  would  not  have  offered 
them  to  a  congregation  five  years  later, 
but  I  am  extremely  glad  that  I  did  it  then, 
and  wish  I  might  see  every  young  pastor  ./ 
undertaking  as  arduous  and  worthy  a 
piece  of  work.  It  was  a  good  service  to 
my  people,  who  appreciated  it  highly, 
and  an  extremely  valuable  service  to 
myself,  and  I  am  very  thankful  that  » 
caution  did  not  forbid  courage  to  under-  N^ 
take  it. 

As  for  my  own  part  in  the  benefit,  the 
[  53  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

enterprise  caused  the  whole  body  of 
Scripture  to  pass  before  me  as  student 
and  as  preacher  in  a  short  time;  it  led  me 
to  make  thorough  use  of  the  best  sources 
of  information  that  were  then  at  my  dis- 
posal; it  taught  me  a  mass  of  facts  that 
I  had  never  learned,  and  put  the  facts  in 
better  order  in  my  mind ;  it  helped  me  to 
view  the  Bible  in  something  like  a  real 
historical  perspective;  it  gave  me  useful 
practice  in  presenting  to  my  hearers 
matter  that  was  unfamiliar  to  them,  and 
it  trained  me  in  the  effort  to  make  general 
knowledge  spiritually  serviceable.  Here 
also  I  caught  the  idea  of  using  results 
without  exhibiting  processes.  It  is  easy 
to  see  how  this  undertaking  became  an 
important  stage  in  my  biblical  education. 

By    the    brotherly    kindness    of    older 
men  I  was  adopted  into  a  club  of  minis- 
ters, in  which  I  received  great  benefit  and 
to  which  I  owe  some  lifelong  friendships, 
t  54   ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

I  mention  it  now  because  of  one  piece  of 
work  that  the  club  assigned  to  me,  which 
brought  forth  fruit  in  the  field  of  biblical 
considerations.  At  that  time  Herbert 
Spencer  was  just  rising  upon  our  horizon, 
and  to  me  was  committed  the  task,  no 
small  one  for  a  youngster,  of  telling  what 
it  was  that  he  was  trying  to  convince  us 
of.  Not  the  whole  of  his  philosophy  was 
then  in  print,  but  I  studied  his  "First 
Principles,"  in  which  the  scheme  and 
substance  of  the  whole  was  presented. 
I  did  not  know  enough  to  make  a  very 
thorough  or  intelligent  study  of  so  vast  a 
field,  but  I  did  at  least  obtain  some  idea 
of  the  essentials  of  Spencer's  system. 
Here  I  got  my  first  clear  glimpses  of  the 
evolutionary  method.  They  were  only 
glimpses,  it  is  true,  and  yet  they  did  afford 
me  a  rudimentary  understanding  of  what 
was  meant  by  evolution.  Little  as  I 
learned  well,  the  fact  remains  that  some 
of  the  fruits  of  that  labor  have  never  been 
[  55  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

lost.  When  the  time  came  I  wrote  as 
well  as  I  could  an  account  of  Spencer's 
philosophy,  and  offered  it  to  the  club. 
I  did  not  accept  the  evolutionary  idea 
that  I  encountered  there:  probably  in- 
deed it  was  not  so  distinctly  before  me 
that  I  could  have  accepted  it,  in  any 
proper  sense.  I  cannot  say  that  it  really 
offered  itself  as  a  part  of  my  mental  fur- 
niture. Yet  I  was  impressed  by  the  sim- 
plicity and  massiveness  of  the  idea,  and 
by  the  almost  boundless  wealth  of  illus- 
tration that  Spencer  was  able  to  bring  to 
its  service.  But  my  experience  with  it  is 
interesting,  and  worth  recording,  be- 
cause it  was  precisely  the  reproduction  in 
miniature  of  the  experience  of  the  Chris- 
tian world  in  those  first  years  of  evolu- 
tionary doctrine.  Here  was  my  objec- 
tion :  I  knew  from  the  Bible  what  was  the 
method  of  God  in  creating  the  world  and 
man,  and  it  was  not  the  method  that 
Spencer  proclaimed  as  the  actual  one. 
[  56  ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

The  doctrine  was  in  contradiction  to  the 
Scriptures,  and  that  stood  as  reason 
enough  for  leaving  it  aside.  This  was 
exactly  the  method  of  the  Christian  world 
for  a  considerable  time  in  dealing  with 
the  evolutionary  idea.  Like  me,  the 
Christian  world  knew  God's  method  of 
creation  from  the  Bible,  where  he  him- 
self had  told  it  to  his  creatures,  and  con- 
sidered the  testimony  of  the  Bible  suffi- 
cient to  dispose  of  the  differing  proposal 
of  evolution. 

Nevertheless,  I  remember  a  kind  of 
dim  suspicion  that  perhaps  the  question 
was  not  one  that  could  be  finally  dis- 
posed of  in  that  way.  When  in  the  man- 
ner of  the  period  I  tried  to  quote  texts 
against  Spencer,  somehow  the  method 
did  not  seem  to  be  as  effective  as  I  thought 
it  ought  to  be.  Any  great  array  of  good 
texts  it  was  not  possible  to  find.  More- 
over, I  found  that  my  brethren  in  the 
club  had  not  counted  upon  having  Spen- 
[  57  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

cer  convicted  of  unscripturalness  and  so 
disposed  of,  but  appeared  to  think  that 
some  other  kind  of  refutation  would  be 
better  suited  to  the  case  if  refutation 
were  proposed.  But  I  had  done  my 
best,  and  they  saw  that  I  had,  and  did 
not  reproach  me.  The  truth  is  that  in  my 
youthful  mind  two  ways  of  endeavoring 
to  establish  truth  were  standing  face  to 
face,  the  method  of  authority  and  the 
method  of  fact,  and  I  was  beginning  dimly 
to  see  how  incommensurable  they  are. 
Arguments  from  one  field  did  not  seem 
to  meet  and  answer  arguments  from  the 
other,  and  I  was  left  with  a  sense  of 
inefficiency  and  disappointment.  I  was 
pained,  too,  for  I  felt  that  the  biblical 
method  ought  to  be  more  effective  than 
I  found  it.  But  though  I  was  dimly  aware 
of  this,  my  difficulty  was  not  sufficiently 
urgent  to  change  my  attitude,  and  I  settled 
down  to  think  of  the  Spencerian  doctrine 
as  condemned  for  incompatibility  with  the 
[  58  ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

Scriptures.  I  may  add  that  later  my 
sympathy  was  somewhat  drawn  to  the 
evolutionists  by  the  crudity,  ignorance, 
and  savageness  of  the  attacks  upon  them 
that  I  used  to  hear  from  some  ministers. 

From  this  club  I  must  cite  another 
remembrance.  Once  in  a  discussion  I 
discovered  that  some  of  the  men,  older 
than  I  and  better  educated,  were  finding 
it  difficult  to  fit  the  facts  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament into  the  scheme  of  their  doctrine  of 
inspiration.  The  reverse  process  did  not 
seem  to  occur  to  them.  According  to  their 
doctrine  the  inspiration  was  outwardly 
attested,  rather  than  inwardly;  they  be- 
lieved it  to  be  in  the  Bible  because  it  was 
promised  to  be  there,  not  because  of  the 
evidence  of  inspiration  that  was  found  in 
the  quality  of  the  book.  Their  argument 
was  deductive,  not  inductive.  The  doc- 
trine was  built  upon  the  Lord's  promise 
to  the  twelve,  to  bring  all  things  to  their 
[  59  J 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

remembrance  and  to  guide  them  into  all 
truth — which  was  understood  to  be  a 
promise  that  they  should  write  infallible 
Scripture  about  him  and  his  gospel.  So 
the  apostles  were  accepted  without  doubt 
as  inspired  men,  and  the  writings  of 
Matthew,  John,  and  Peter  could  be  ac- 
knowledged at  once  as  writings  of  the 
Spirit.  Paul,  moreover,  had  been  adopted 
into  the  apostolate,  and  it  was  not  doubted 
that  the  promise  had  been  carried  over  to 
him.  Of  course  there  was  no  evidence 
that  it  had,  but  his  apostleship  was  ac- 
cepted as  sufficient  evidence,  and  his  in- 
spiration was  unquestioned.  But  the 
writers  in  the  New  Testament  who  were 
not  apostles — how  were  they  to  be  gath- 
ered in  under  a  promise  that  was  made 
exclusively  to  another  set  of  men  ?  Of 
course  they  must  be  gathered  in,  for  the 
inspired  Bible  contained  their  writings, 
but  how  ?  Suggestions  were  ready.  Mark 
was  anciently  reported  to  be  a  represent- 
[  60  ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

ative  of  Peter,  and  Peter  may,  perhaps, 
have  read  and  approved  his  Gospel. 
Luke,  it  was  suggested,  had  abundant 
opportunity  of  conversation  with  Paul, 
and  may  for  all  we  know  have  read  his 
Gospel  over  to  him  and  received  his  im- 
primatur upon  it,  making  it  for  us  equal 
to  Paul's  own  work.  What  provision  if 
any  was  made  for  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews I  do  not  remember :  perhaps  it  was 
still  regarded  as  a  Pauline  writing.  I 
hasten  to  say  that  these  suggestions  of 
possible  apostolical  sanction  were  not 
offered  in  the  discussion  as  if  they  were 
final  or  well  established;  but  I  regret  to 
say  that  they  were  offered  as  suggestions 
that  were  not  a  waste  of  breath.  I  lacked 
confidence  to  discuss  the  matter  in  that 
presence,  and  held  my  peace,  but  even 
then  such  talk  seemed  to  me  utterly 
worthless  and  absurd.  I  felt  that  it  was 
binding  the  Bible  to  a  theory,  not  fitting 
the  theory  to  the  Bible ;  and  I  had  a  sense 
[  61  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

of  the  fact  that  men  who  had  any  use  for 
it;  however  sincere  they  might  be,  were 
somehow  on  false  ground,  dealing  with 
unrealities. 

A  little  later  I  listened  to  an  elaborate 
statement  of  the  doctrine  of  inspiration 
that  I  had  thus  seen  put  to  the  test.  It 
was  not  the  ancient  doctrine  of  verbal 
inspiration,  but  one  considerably  re- 
moved from  that,  although  it  sought  in 
the  end  to  make  the  Bible  as  infallible 
and  authoritative  as  that  doctrine  made 
it.  I  remember  the  impression  of  pon- 
derousness,  laboriousness,  and  inconclu- 
siveness.  There  was  too  much  of  it,  and 
too  much  hinged  upon  points  that  could 
not  be  proved.  All  depended  upon  the 
promise  made  to  the  twelve,  which  was 
adopted  as  the  centre  of  the  whole  argu- 
ment; and  even  then  I  felt  that  it  was 
very  poor  interpreting  that  would  limit 
the  promise  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  the 
apostles,  and  make  it  pledge  infallibility 
[  62  ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

in  a  work  of  writing  that  was  not  so  much 
as  mentioned.  But  these  glimpses  of  a 
better  view  were  not  full  visions,  and 
these  thoughts  remained  with  me  chiefly 
as  seed  for  future  harvests. 

The  church  of  which  I  was  pastor  had 
suffered  sadly  from  the  Millerite  excite- 
ment, expecting  the  second  coming  of 
Christ  in  1843,  and  all  the  intervening 
years  had  not  been  sufficient  to  wear  out 
the  ill  effects.  The  echoes  of  that  strange 
experience  had  been  in  my  ears  from 
childhood.  Since  I  became  a  student  of 
the  Bible  I  had  not  heard  much  discus- 
sion of  the  advent,  and  the  most  of  my 
parish  had  little  to  say  about  it  now,  save 
in  regretful  wonder  at  the  past.  But  I 
found  in  the  church  one  man  of  excellent 
character  who  was  still  strong  in  the  ad- 
vent hope,  and  constant  in  proclaiming 
it.  With  a  fine  superiority  he  repudiated 
the  rashness  that  would  set  a  day  for  the 
[  63  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

Lord's  return,  but  he  was  sure  that  the 
time-signals,  of  which  he  found  many  in 
the  Bible,  all  pointed  to  the  year  1868, 
then  three  or  four  years  in  the  future,  as 
the  time  of  the  end.  He  called  himself 
a  literalist,  and  insisted  that  all  that  he 
had  to  do  with  the  Bible  in  order  to 
understand  it  was  to  "take  it  as  it  reads." 
To  him,  "as  it  reads,"  in  the  English,  it 
bore  the  perfect  authority  of  God.  Study- 
ing with  him  one  day  some  of  his  favorite 
passages  in  Daniel,  I  pointed  to  the  mar- 
ginal readings,  and  tried  to  show  him 
that  in  their  startling  divergence  from 
the  page  they  proved  how  far  the  transla- 
tors were  from  being  sure  that  they  knew 
what  the  meaning  of  the  original  really 
was.  But  all  in  vain.  He  had  no  con- 
ception of  the  Bible  as  a  translated  book, 
though  of  course  he  knew  and  could  say 
that  such  it  was.  To  him  the  words  of 
the  translation  were  the  words  of  God, 
and  he  had  his  understanding  of  them, 
[  64  ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

the  only  possible  one  as  he  conceived, 
and  from  it  he  could  not  be  moved.  I 
saw  him  last  about  1870.  The  date  of 
hope  had  moved  on,  and  the  end  was 
still  coming  soon. 

Reflecting  upon  his  method  with  the 
Bible,  and  upon  the  calamity  of  1843, 
I  remember  questioning  how  it  came  to 
pass  that  so  strange  and  widespread  a 
popular  delusion  was  possible.  How, 
I  asked,  could  Father  Miller  convince  so 
many  people,  and  do  it  so  completely? 
Of  course  such  excitements  were  no  new 
thing,  for  many  a  generation  has  believed 
itself  to  be  the  last  of  earth ;  but  how  was 
this  special  excitement  created  ?  At  first 
it  seemed  unaccountable,  but  on  further 
consideration  I  became  sure  that  I  under- 
stood it.  Miller's  hearers  were  sincere 
Bible  readers,  of  the  ordinary  literalistic 
kind.  Without  the  habit  of  seeking  light 
upon  the  page,  except  as  light  shone  forth 
from  the  page  itself,  they  were  accus- 
[  65  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

tomed  to  "take  the  Bible  as  it  reads," 
regard  it  all  in  its  obvious  meaning  as  the 
equal  utterance  of  God,  and  consider  it 
all  applicable  to  themselves.  This  was 
what  preachers  and  people  were  wont  to 
do,  using  the  Bible  year  after  year  in  this 
sincere  but  superficial  fashion.  The  fa- 
miliar parts  of  the  Bible  were  familiar  in 
this  way.  And  now  Father  Miller  came 
along,  a  godly  man  and  a  powerful 
preacher,  aflame  with  new  discoveries. 
He  simply  applied  the  very  same  method 
to  the  predictive  and  apocalyptical  parts 
of  the  Bible,  "taking  them  as  they  read," 
reading  them  in  the  light  of  history  ill 
understood  and  mathematics  misapplied, 
and  bringing  out  startling  and  revolu- 
tionary results  that  he  believed  with 
faith  invincible;  and  no  one  could  an- 
swer him  or  show  him  to  be  in  error, 
because  the  average  mind  that  he  ad- 
dressed not  only  believed  in  the  method 
that  he  employed,  but  knew  no  other. 
[  66  ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

In  the  churches  that  had  a  better-edu- 
cated ministry  his  doctrine  had  less 
vogue,  but  with  average  untrained  read- 
ers of  the  English  Bible  he  was  irresistible. 
The  great  calamity  of  1843  was  due  to 
general  misapprehension  and  misuse  of 
the  Bible.  Intelligent  use  of  the  holy 
book  would  have  made  it  impossible. 
Such  light  upon  the  Bible  as  was  opening 
upon  me  in  my  first  pastorate,  I  felt, 
would  have  prevented  the  disaster  from 
which  my  parish  like  a  multitude  of 
others  was  suffering  still.  With  rational 
conceptions  of  the  Bible  such  things  could 
not  occur,  and  I  desired  to  be  helpful  in 
preventing  them  from  ever  coming  to 
pass  again. 

At  the  end  of  my  first  pastorate  I  had 
promise  of  an  interesting  future  with  the 
Bible,  but  little  foresight  of  what  it  was 
to  be.  I  had  not  exchanged  my  inherited 
view  of  the  sacred  book  for  another, 
[  67  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

though  I  was  on  the  way  to  doing  so. 
But  some  things  had  been  done.  I  was 
beginning  to  know  how  much  it  means 
that  the  Bible  is  a  translated  book.  This 
was  a  revolutionary  knowledge,  which 
most  Christians  about  me,  and  many 
ministers,  did  not  possess  at  all.  With 
me  it  had  been  growing  from  my  student 
days,  and  was  now  becoming  clear,  al- 
though I  still  had  much  to  learn  of  what 
is  meant  by  so  simple  a  fact.  I  was  be- 
ginning to  know  also,  in  slight  degree, 
how  much  it  means  that  the  Bible  is  a 
genuinely  historical  book,  having  its  rise 
and  habitat  in  the  human  world,  record- 
ing vital  dealings  between  God  and  men, 
and  to  be  understood  in  the  light  of  its 
historical  origins,  intentions,  and  devel- 
opment. No  longer  an  unrelieved  level 
of  equal  authority,  it  was  beginning  to 
have  its  hills  and  dales,  its  lights  and 
shades,  as  a  book  of  real  life,  the  life  of 
God  in  man  and  of  man  with  God.  It 
[  68  ] 


THE  SIXTIES 

was  thus  becoming  more  intimately  my 
own  because  it  was  more  alive,  and  was 
more  available  for  my  use  in  the  ministry 
of  Jesus  Christ.  But  by  what  means 
these  sound  convictions  were  to  be  helped 
to  do  their  wholesome  work  I  little 
dreamed,  nor  did  I  imagine  how  great 
were  the  changes  of  which  they  held  the 
promise. 


IV 
THE  SEVENTIES 

DURING  the  entire  decade  of  the  Seven- 
ties I  was  neighbor  and  pastor  to  a  Theo- 
logical Seminary.  It  would  naturally  be 
expected  that  such  a  period  in  a  young 
man's  life  would  provide  an  important 
chapter  in  the  story  of  his  relations  with 
the  Bible,  and  in  my  case  so  it  did.  Under 
various  influences  the  story  developed 
very  gradually*  perhaps  more  gradually 
than  logically,  but  it  advanced  to  results 
for  which  I  am  profoundly  grateful.  I 
was  aware  of  this  period  as  largely  a  time 
of  harvest  from  my  earlier  life,  but  after- 
ward I  knew  it  as  far  more  truly  a  seed- 
I  time. 

How  strange  it  seems  to  remember  a 
[  70  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

time  when  there  was  neither  conscious- 
ness nor  foresight  of  the  changes  that 
were  on  the  way!  Such  was  the  time  of 
which  I  speak.  So  far  as  they  were 
aware,  the  people  of  my  second  parish 
were  unchanged  from  the  past  in  their 
attitude  toward  the  Bible.  They  knew 
that  knowledge  was  increasing,  and  were 
thankful,  but  increasing  knowledge  had 
not  yet  reached  the  revolutionary  stage. 
The  prevailing  reverence  for  the  book, 
and  the  prevailing  manner  of  using  it, 
remained  essentially  the  same  in  kind  as 
in  an  earlier  generation.  The  Bible  was 
regarded  as  equally  inspired  throughout, 
and  inspiration  meant  nothing  less  than 
full  divine  authority.  Naturally,  how- 
ever, the  using  of  such  a  book  implied 
interpretation,  and  it  was  only  the  book 
in  its  true  sense,  which  sense  a  Christian 
must  make  his  best  endeavors  to  ascer- 
tain, that  we  were  bound  to  accept  as 
God's  word  and  the  rule  of  life;  but  in 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

its  true  meaning,  once  ascertained,  the 
book  was  binding  upon  the  understanding 
and  upon  the  conscience.  One  was  no 
more  at  liberty  to  doubt  its  statements  of 
fact  or  to  reject  its  judgments  upon  truth 
than  to  disobey  it  in  conduct.  In  the 
minds  of  a  few  this  serious  and  exacting 
view  of  the  Bible  was  fortified  by  a  special 
doctrine  of  its  inspiration,  but  by  the 
greater  number  it  was  held  as  a  matter 
of  reverent  inherited  belief;  and  to  both 
classes  alike  the  Bible  was  the  object  of 
sincere  reverence  and  loyalty.  I  am  sure 
that  this  description  fairly  represents  the 
attitude  of  that  parish  toward  the  Bible 
at  the  time  of  my  first  acquaintance  with 
it,  when  the  Seventies  were  coming  in ;  and 
I  myself  had  by  no  means  passed  out  of 
practical  sympathy  with  it. 

But  there  were  influences  that  were 

surely   bringing   on   a   change.      In   the 

school  of  Theology  for  many  years,  until 

just  before  my  coming,  one  of  the  pioneers 

[  72  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

of  modern  scholarly  biblical  interpreta- 
tion, a  masterful  teacher,  had  been  guid- 
ing and  inspiring  his  pupils  to  judge  for 
themselves  what  is  that  true  meaning 
which  is  binding  upon  mind  and  heart. 
The  practice  that  he  encouraged  is  more 
revolutionary  than  any  one  at  the  time 
was  aware.  In  fact,  the  inherited  belief 
was  doomed  to  be  altered,  when  once 
men's  godliest  and  most  scientific  en- 
deavors were  devoted  to  the  interpretation 
of  that  book  to  which  they  acknowledged 
absolute  allegiance.  When  a  man  is  set  to 
interpret  the  standard  that  he  must  obey,  it 
means  that  henceforth  he  is  to  obey  a 
standard  that  he  has  interpreted.  For  his 
own  mind,  he  has  helped  to  determine  the 
duty  that  he  is  required  to  do.  But  inter- 
pretation is  not  final.  Nothing  is  more 
certain  than  that  it  will  change  with 
new  light,  continued  study,  and  personal 
growth.  Thus  as  interpretation  advances 
the  standard  is  altered,  and  it  becomes  in- 
[  73  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

creasingly  true  that  the  student  has  had  a 
share  in  making  the  standard  to  which  his 
obedience  is  pledged.  This,  whatever  the 
result  may  be,  is  on  the  face  of  it  a  pro- 
found change  from  the  attitude  toward 
the  Bible  that  the  fathers  held.  They 
said,  "This  is  the  word:  we  must  obey 
it."  Their  children  were  saying,  "This 
is  the  word :  we  must  find  what  it  means  " : 
and  obedience  will  vary  much  with  the 
meaning  that  they  find.  Such  change  as 
this  was  irresistibly  going  on  in  my  par- 
ish, though  yet  mainly  concealed,  for 
there  faithful  men  were  conducting  the 
studies  from  which  the  change  must  come 
forth.  The  heirs  of  the  scholarly  influ- 
ence that  I  have  mentioned  were  dili- 
gently continuing  the  work  upon  the 
Bible  into  which  it  had  led  them,  and 
thus  were  preparing  the  way  of  a  future 
that  they  did  not  foresee.  In  this  they 
were  by  no  means  alone,  for  they  were 
simply  bearing  their  part  in  a  large  move- 
[  74  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

ment  of  the  time.  The  day  was  coming 
when  examination  of  what  the  Bible 
teaches  and  requires  must  take  effect 
upon  conceptions  of  what  the  Bible  is. 

In  my  new  parish  the  next  stage  in  my 
own  biblical  education  was  marked  out 
for  me  by  imperious  conditions.  The 
work  was  prescribed,  and  not  elective: 
I  did  as  I  must.  First  the  method  of  my 
weekly  work  was  dictated  to  me.  I  was 
a  very  young  man  in  a  very  exacting  pul- 
pit, and  the  situation  was  no  easy  one. 
If  I  was  not  to  fail,  I  must  preach  as  well 
as  I  could  every  time.  I  became  con- 
vinced that  I  could  do  the  best  work  by 
writing  my  sermons;  and  thus  it  came 
to  pass  that  through  all  the  Seventies 
I  wrote  and  read  every  sermon  that  I 
preached.  So  uniform  was  this  practice 
that  my  best  friends  came  to  think  that 
I  could  preach  in  no  other  way.  Writing 
became  easy,  and  preaching  from  manu- 
[  75  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

script  came  to  be  quite  compatible  with 
fluency.  The  practice  had  its  drawbacks, 
but  it  had  also  its  great  advantages,  and  I 
have  never  regretted  that  in  my  earlier 
ministry  I  was  for  ten  years  a  writer  and 
reader  of  sermons.  Neither  have  I  ever 
regretted  that  I  followed  that  practice 
for  ten  years  only. 

Driven  to  my  best  work,  I  was  driven 
also  to  my  Bible.  How  vividly  I  recall 
my  inexperienced  manner  of  resorting  to 
it  in  those  days !  Not  yet  had  dawned  for 
me  that  great  day  in  a  young  man's  life 
after  which  he  knows  that  by  the  time 
that  he  has  to  say  something  he  will  have 
something  to  say.  It  came  before  long, 
but  meanwhile  I  was  nervous  about  get- 
ting my  message  in  hand.  The  Bible  was 
my  sole  resource,  and  I  never  thought  of 
looking  elsewhere  for  suggestions  of  ma- 
terial. I  can  see  myself  now,  sitting  be- 
fore it  and  turning  it  over  and  over  and 
over,  looking  through  history  and  poetry 
t  76  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

and  prophecy  and  all  the  rest,  hoping  that 
something  new  or  old  might  catch  my  eye 
and  offer  itself  as  the  message  of  the  hour. 
I  have  spent  days  upon  days  in  this  man- 
ner, but  usually  in  vain.  This  external 
method  of  resorting  to  the  Bible  rarely 
gave  me  what  I  sought,  and  I  grew  more 
nervous  rather  than  less  while  I  used  it. 
And  yet  I  remember  those  anxious  hours 
with  gratitude.  They  were  never  wasted. 
Though  I  rarely  found  what  I  was  look- 
ing for,  I  always  found  something  that 
was  worth  looking  for.  The  richness  of 
the  book  vindicated  itself,  for  even  these 
hours  of  random  communion  with  the 
Bible,  though  for  the  time  they  seemed 
wasted,  always  left  me  with  something 
suitable  to  occasions  that  were  yet  to 
arise. 

But  the  main  point  now  is  that  I  was 

driven  to  my   Bible.     My  earlier  work 

came  to  my  aid  when  I  was  in  need,  and 

it    came    to    pass    that   throughout   this 

[   77   ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

period  I  was  predominantly  an  exegetical 
preacher.  A  biblical  preacher,  perhaps 
I  ought  to  say>  but  the  more  specific  ad- 
jective is  appropriate,  for  the  exegetical 
method  became  thoroughly  character- 
istic of  my  work.  A  friendly  comment  of 
a  student  hearer  once  enlightened  me. 
From  a  remark  that  he  made  I  discovered 
that  the  students  had  come  to  expect  that 
the  introduction  of  my  sermon  would  uni- 
formly give  an  exegetical  account  of  my 
text  and  offer  textual  justification  of  what 
I  was  to  say.  I  did  not  know  that  the 
exegetical  habit  was  so  strong  upon  me, 
and  was  glad  to  be  informed.  Yet  I 
ought  not  to  have  been  surprised,  for  at 
that  time  I  almost  believed  that  the  exe- 
getical way  was  the  only  way  to  preach. 
A  sermon,  I  said  to  myself,  ought  to  come 
out  of  a  text,  and  straightforward  exe- 
getical proceeding  was  the  only  right  way 
to  bring  it  out.  Upon  this  theory  I  acted 
to  a  very  great  extent,  though  of  course 
[  78  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

not  without  some  exceptions.  By  neces- 
sity a  man  would  make  exceptions,  but 
the  exegetical  method  directly  underlay 
the  most  of  my  preaching.  Sermons  were 
oftener  textual  than  topical,  and  the  anal- 
ysis was  most  likely  to  be  on  a  textual 
basis.  Often  the  text  served  as  the  key 
to  a  larger  passage,  and  the  sermon  was 
virtually  expository.  I  did  not  expound 
the  Scriptures  in  a  continuous  way,  taking 
a  book  together,  for  I  had  little  confidence 
in  my  ability  to  sustain  the  interest  of  my 
congregation  in  a  course  announced  be- 
forehand; but  my  ordinary  preaching 
contained  a  good  deal  of  exposition.  Our 
Sunday-school  was  at  mid-day,  and  in  a 
later  service,  afternoon  or  evening,  I  have 
reproduced  and  interpreted  many  a  his- 
torical lesson.  Many  a  Bible  story  have 
I  retold,  many  a  character  have  I  set 
forth,  and  many  a  familiar  scene  have 
I  placed  in  its  local  and  historical  setting. 
Many  an  out-of-the-way  matter  in  the 
[  79  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

Bible  also  have  I  brought  into  the  open 
for  my  hearers. 

In  all  this  work  it  was  my  constant 
endeavor  to  act  as  a  loyal  and  faithful 
interpreter.  I  took  it  as  my  task  to  find 
out,  as  far  as  I  had  the  power,  exactly 
what  my  passage  meant  in  the  intention 
of  the  writer;  and  I  was  not  willing  to 
give  it  any  meaning  or  use  that  was  incon- 
sistent with  its  original  sense.  Misuse  of 
texts  seemed  to  me  a  kind  of  irreverence, 
or  profanity.  I  can  truly  claim  that  in 
interpreting  the  Bible  I  was  profoundly 
conscientious.  I  had  to  feel  that  my  in- 
terpretation was  correct  before  I  could 
use  my  passage.  I  remember  once  being 
suddenly  stopped  in  the  composition  of  a 
sermon.  I  had  written  two  or  three 
pages  when  by  some  means  I  became 
informed  for  the  first  time  that  compe- 
tent authorities  gave  my  text  a  meaning 
practically  opposite  to  the  one  that  I  was 
using.  Down  went  my  pen.  I  was  pow- 
[  80  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

erless  to  go  on  until  I  had  weighed  the 
question  whether  I  had  a  right  to  pro- 
ceed. In  that  instance  I  became  con- 
vinced that  my  exegesis  was  correct,  and 
wrote  the  sermon.  If  I  had  judged  oth- 
erwise, it  would  have  been  unfinished 
until  now.  I  am  sure  that  in  those  days 
no  listening  student  learned  from  me  to 
be  unfaithful  to  his  Bible  or  indifferent 
to  accuracy  in  interpreting  it.  Until  now, 
indeed,  I  believe  I  can  say  the  same. 
And  I  am  sure  that  no  one  can  have 
learned  from  me  to  seek  additional  inter- 
est for  his  preaching  by  turning  away 
from  his  Bible.  I  never  felt  the  need  of 
that.  Other  fields  are  legitimate,  but 
fine  surprises  in  preaching  are  to  be 
found  by  going  farther  into  the  biblical 
mine,  as  I  have  illustrated  many  a  time. 

In    this    endeavor    after    fidelity    the 

habit    of   writing   was   very   helpful.      I 

might  have  had  the  best  of  intentions  in 

preaching  extemporaneously,  but  in  un- 

[  81  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

considered  speech  my  painstaking  inter- 
pretation might  easily  have  been  dissi- 
pated. The  habit  of  writing  tended  to 
make  me  careful  in  doing  justice  to  the 
meanings  that  I  had  found.  In  fact, 
I  regard  my  ten  years  of  sermon  writing 
as  a  very  valuable  term  in  that  course  of 
biblical  education  which  I  am  here 
describing. 

The  desire  for  accurate  understanding 
of  the  Bible  led  me,  as  it  had  led  my  early 
teacher,  to  take  an  interest  in  textual 
criticism.  What  are  the  words  that  I  am 
to  interpret?  was  a  necessary  question, 
and  I  became  deeply  interested  in  search- 
ing it  out.  Of  course,  I  was  never  more 
than  an  amateur  in  textual  criticism,  but 
I  was  an  eager  amateur,  and  one  who 
attained  to  some  little  knowledge.  Al- 
ready in  my  student  days,  as  I  have 
said,  the  Received  Text  had  retired 
never  to  return  and  been  superseded 
[  82  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

by  Tischendorf,  who  held  the  field  until 
the  coming  of  Westcott  and  Hort,  in 
the  early  Eighties.  But  meanwhile  for 
daily  use  I  exchanged  his  text  for  the 
New  Testament  of  Scrivener,  with  its 
foot-notes  that  gave  all  the  important 
various  readings.  My  pocket  Scrivener 
became  very  dear  to  me.  Then  I  bought 
Tischendorf  s  eighth  edition  of  the  New 
Testament  in  its  complete  form,  with 
all  the  critical  apparatus,  and  made 
much  use  of  it.  In  some  degree  I  became 
acquainted  with  the  methods  and  mate- 
rials of  textual  criticism,  and  learned  to 
judge  for  myself  the  true  text.  I  never 
used  my  New  Testament  without  the 
question  of  the  correct  reading  in  mind, 
and  never  used  a  text  from  it  without 
considering  whether  it  stood  before  me 
as  nearly  as  possible  in  its  original  form. 
I  keenly  enjoyed  such  researches  in 
Tischendorf  as  I  was  competent  to  make, 
and  accounted  these  studies  greatly  to 
[  83  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

my  advantage  as  a  Christian  student. 
The  interest  has  always  continued.  If 
I  have  not  consulted  my  books  so  much 
of  late,  it  is  largely  because  I  have  gath- 
ered into  memory  many  of  the  passages  in 
which  there  are  variant  readings  that  would 
make  serious  difference  in  the  sense. 

Another  important  influence  now  came 
in.  In  those  days  commentaries  were 
relatively  much  more  in  use  than  they  are 
at  present.  With  my  method  of  study 
I  was  using  them  a  good  deal,  and  alike 
by  the  good  and  the  evil  that  I  found  in 
them  I  was  led  to  desire  the  best.  So  I 
bought  Meyer  on  the  New  Testament  in 
what  was  then  the  latest  edition,  and  for 
many  years  Meyer  was  my  principal 
counsellor  in  interpretation. 

There  were  some  things  in  Meyer  that 
I  did  not  prize,  but  I  could  pass  them  by. 
When  he  wrote,  the  history  of  interpre- 
tation was  accounted  more  important 
than  it  is  now  felt  to  be.  I  imagine  that 
[  84  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

Meyer  initiated  the  conditions  in  which 
it  naturally  came  to  be  less  regarded. 
But  on  any  given  passage,  if  there  were 
any  serious  differences  about  it,  he  care- 
fully reported  the  judgment  of  all  im- 
portant commentators.  In  condensed 
form,  arranged  in  groups  when  classifi- 
cation was  possible,  he  laid  before  me  all 
the  explanations  that  had  reputable  stand- 
ing up  to  that  date.  Sometimes  this  was 
a  valuable  contribution,  by  which  I  was 
really  helped.  I  was  always  glad  to  know 
the  opinions  of  the  few  great  exegetes,  and 
in  contested  or  obscure  places  a  larger  roll 
of  witnesses  was  often  useful.  But  some- 
times the  list  seemed  superfluous,  and  on 
the  whole  I  came  to  feel  that  I  was  in- 
vited to  give  too  much  attention  to  miscel- 
laneous judgments  of  men  of  earlier  time. 
It  did  not  seem  to  me  that  the  best  guid- 
ance was  to  be  obtained  by  such  compari- 
son of  opinions.  But  I  could  always  leave 
this  if  I  chose,  and  turn  to  Meyer  himself. 
[  85  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

For  his  influence  I  have  always  been 
profoundly  grateful.  I  had  used  good 
books  before,  but  I  had  also  had  ex- 
perience of  commentaries  that  dealt  in 
allegory  and  fanciful  renderings  and  in- 
terpretations that  ignored  historical  con- 
ditions. Meyer  was  to  me  the  master  of 
sound  processes,  the  apostle  of  common- 
sense.  Occasionally  I  was  compelled  to 
dissent  from  his  judgment,  but  usually  he 
carried  me  with  him.  His  discernment 
of  the  main  point,  his  rational  setting 
aside  of  minor  matters,  his  clear,  straight- 
forward stroke  into  the  very  midst  of  a 
question,  his  lucid  judgment  and  trans- 
parent expression,  his  loyalty  to  the  spirit 
of  Jesus  which  ought  to  rule  in  interpret- 
ing the  gospel,  all  this  commanded  my 
enthusiastic  admiration.  He  appealed  to 
me  as  the  most  reasonable  interpreter  of 
the  Scriptures  that  I  had  ever  known,  and 
I  rejoiced  to  put  myself  under  the  lead- 
ing of  so  able  and  rational  a  guide.  The 
[  86  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

years  of  his  immediate  influence  cleared 
my  convictions  and  improved  my  methods, 
and  his  contribution  abides  in  my  life. 

It  was  very  early  in  this  decade  that 
Meyer  came  to  my  help,  and  he  was  w.ith 
me  while  I  was  doing  the  exegetical  work 
of  which  I  have  spoken.  He  was  my 
chief  companion  in  the  study  that  pre- 
pared me  for  the  pulpit.  He  taught  me 
how  superfluous  are  homiletical  com- 
mentaries, by  doing  far  better  for  me  as 
a  preacher  than  they  could  do.  Together 
with  Meyer  I  came  into  the  daily  habit  of 
using  Grimm's  Wilke's  "Clavis,"  which 
was  then  the  standard  Greek  lexicon  of 
the  New  Testament,  a  work  that  was 
thoroughly  worthy  to  rank  with  Meyer's 
commentary  and  was  superseded  only 
by  the  coming  of  Thayer,  its  English 
representative,  a  decade  later. 

I  must  not  fail  to  mention  certain  per- 
sonal influences  that  were  upon  me  in 
[  87  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

those  years.  Earliest  among  them,  and 
latest,  too,  was  that  of  the  theologian  to 
whom  I  looked  up  almost  as  to  a  father. 
Older  than  I  by  more  than  a  score  of 
years,  he  received  me  from  the  first  into 
a  warm  friendship,  which  remained  unal- 
tered to  the  end  of  his  days.  As  soon  as 
I  knew  him  I  was  attracted  by  the  sweet- 
ness of  his  spirit,  and  also  by  his  candor, 
his  patience,  and  his  well-balanced  judg- 
ment. I  did  not  always  agree  with  him, 
but  in  all  his  work  I  knew  him  as  the  tru- 
est of  men.  Toward  the  Bible  his  atti- 
tude was  one  of  the  utmost  reverence  and 
loyalty.  To  him  it  brought  the  truth  and 
will  of  God,  and  he  joyfully  acknowl- 
edged its  authority  upon  his  conscience 
and  his  intelligence  alike.  In  his  work 
of  theological  construction  he  considered 
himself  bound,  and  limited,  by  what  the 
Bible  contains.  To  him  a  text  was  a 
proof;  but  it  must  be  a  text  critically 
verified,  fairly  interpreted,  and  used  in 
[  88  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

accordance  with  its  meaning.  The  real 
meaning  of  a  text  thus  handled  was  God's 
meaning,  and  the  text  was  God's  word. 
He  held  a  distinct  doctrine  of  inspira- 
tion, but  his  theory  was  the  result  of  his 
reverence  for  the  Bible,  and  in  no  sense 
the  cause  of  it.  Sometimes  I  thought  that 
he  interpreted  too  theologically,  and  I 
often  felt  that  he  was  too  much  in  the 
power  of  his  doctrine  of  inspiration,  but 
he  was  never  wanting  to  me  as  an  ex- 
ample of  godliness  at  work.  The  pres- 
ence and  fellowship  of  such  a  scholar 
could  not  fail  to  influence  me  in  the  use 
of  the  Bible.  Preaching  to  him,  consult- 
ing with  him,  and  watching  his  work  all 
kept  the  preciousness  of  the  Bible  before 
my  eyes.  At  the  same  time  his  influence 
was  strong  and  wholesome  upon  me  in 
leading  me  to  think  for  myself.  His  can- 
dor and  quiet  zeal  inspired  me  to  inde- 
pendent work,  in  which  his  example  en- 
couraged me  to  take  my  own  way.  And 
[  89  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

if  my  way  sometimes  led  me  to  differ  with 
him,  he  would  not  call  me  back  on  that 
account. 

The  man  of  my  own  age  who  was 
nearest  to  me  was  teacher  of  New  Testa- 
ment Interpretation.  He  was  one  of  the 
last  pupils  of  the  great  exegete  whom  I 
mentioned  at  the  beginning  of  this  chap- 
ter, and  had  been  called  to  take  his  place ; 
and  I  was  with  him  in  the  years  when  he 
was  growing  to  his  work.  He  was  a  man 
of  immense  force,  keen  of  intellect,  deep- 
seeing  and  far-seeing.  By  patient  con- 
centration he  developed  a  rare  exegetical 
sense,  and  became  a  very  remarkable  in- 
terpreter of  the  Scriptures.  He  was  a 
powerful  teacher,  too.  Contrarious  stu- 
dents had  small  chance  with  him,  and 
open-minded  students  were  led  by  his 
strong  reasonableness  into  larger  thought. 
In  teaching  others  he  taught  himself,  and 
from  stage  to  stage  his  clear-seeing  mind 
marched  steadily  forward  in  apprehen- 
[  90  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

sion  of  the  Christian  truth.  The  years 
brought  changes  in  his  conception  of  the 
Bible.  He  began,  as  I  did,  with  the 
assumption  that  all  the  Christian  doc- 
trines were  developed  within  the  New 
Testament,  and  that  our  permanent  stand- 
ard of  belief  there  lay  before  us,  needing 
only  to  be  interpreted.  But  as  he  went 
on  he  became  better  acquainted  with  the 
writers  of  the  New  Testament,  and 
formed  a  different  conception  of  their 
relation  to  Christian  students  of  the 
present  day.  He  came  to  think  that  the 
writers,  instead  of  being  final  authority 
concerning  divine  truth,  were  fellow- 
interpreters  of  the  gospel  with  himself 
and  with  all  Christians.  He  was  not 
bound  by  all  their  statements,  but  counted 
it  his  privilege  to  seek  the  light  of 
Christ  for  himself  by  their  help.  He  read 
the  New  Testament  as  the  inestimably 
precious  record  of  Christianity,  not  as 
its  source,  or  as  our  final  standard 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

for  defining  its  doctrines.  I  remember 
his  saying  one  day,  "A  man  has  no  idea 
how  great  a  man  Paul  was,  or  how  great 
was  his  teaching,  as  long  as  he  feels 
obliged  to  agree  with  him."  Released 
thus  from  the  claim  of  conformity,  he 
took  his  place  among  the  free  searchers 
for  the  truth  of  God.  I  need  not  tell  how 
helpful  it  was  to  me  to  have  so  conscien- 
tious and  enterprising  a  student  for  my 
companion  in  the  study  of  the  Bible. 
Many  a  single  passage  and  many  a  large 
meaning  have  I  worked  out  with  him, 
and  my  permanent  indebtedness  to  him 
is  very  great. 

Of  these  two  personal  companionships, 
each  inspiring  in  its  own  way,  perhaps  it 
may  be  said,  though  with  a  margin  of  in- 
accuracy, that  one  would  hold  me  where 
the  Bible  had  brought  me,  and  the  other 
would  send  me  wherever  the  Bible  might 
lead  me.  But  the  influence  of  my  own 
generation  was  strong  upon  me,  as  it  was 


THE  SEVENTIES 

upon  my  friend  of  my  own  age,  and  it  was 
quite  inevitable  that  I  should  respond, 
though  slowly,  to  influences  that  tended 
to  change.  Slowly,  I  say,  for  it  seems  to 
me  now  that  it  took  me  a  long  time  to  do 
what  appears  to  have  been  quite  natural 
and  very  simple.  But  time  is  a  peculiar 
element  in  such  experiences.  Progress 
from  one  realm  of  thought  to  another  is 
apt  to  be  halting  and  uneven:  gains 
sometimes  seem  to  be  lost,  and  progressive 
experiences  have  to  be  duplicated.  Once 
in  one  of  my  removals  I  came  across  a 
bundle  of  forgotten  sermons  about  a 
dozen  years  old,  and  found  that  they 
gave  pretty  good  expression  to  a  set  of 
ideas  that  I  really  supposed  I  had  only 
just  begun  to  hold  and  to  preach.  So 
little  does  a  man  understand  his  own 
journey  while  he  is  on  the  way.  At  the 
beginning  of  that  dozen  years  I  had  met 
the  ideas  in  question,  but  my  acquaint- 
ance with  them  had  been  so  slight  that 
[  93  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

I  could  forget  the  meeting.     At  the  end 
of  it  they  had  come  to  live  with  me. 

The  history  of  the  first  exegetical  paper 
that  I  ever  published  illustrates  much  in 
the  movement  of  my  mind  with  regard  to 
methods  of  interpretation.  About  the 
middle  of  the  Seventies  I  wrote  an  article 
on  the  seventh  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Romans,  discussing  whether  or  not 
that  tragic  story  of  the  divided  self  was 
intended  by  Paul  to  be  descriptive  of  an 
experience  in  the  regenerate  life.  I 
brooded  long  over  the  passage,  viewing 
it  in  all  the  lights  that  I  could  see,  and 
wrought  out  an  interpretation  which  I 
felt  to  be  correct.  It  seemed  to  me  the 
only  one  that  the  passage  would  bear, 
and  I  wrote  it  out  in  full  confidence. 
Exactly  when  this  confidence  began  to 
desert  me  I  do  not  remember,  but  it  did 
desert  me,  and  in  the  course  of  time,  long 
after  the  paper  had  been  published,  I  be- 
[  94  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

came  fully  convinced  that  I  had  been  at 
work  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  question 
with  which  I  began.  A  friend  who  dis- 
sents from  this  later  judgment  says  that 
I  have  never  answered  the  arguments  by 
which  I  established  my  first  conclusion. 
I  think  he  feels  that  they  have  never  been 
answered.  It  may  be  that  they  have  not: 
in  their  own  place  they  may  be  unan- 
swerable. But  I  do  not  feel  constrained 
to  answer  them,  for  I  have  ceased  to  re- 
gard them  as  arguments  that  are  decisive 
of  the  meaning.  It  seems  to  me  that  my 
interpretation  of  the  passage  in  the  Sev- 
enties was  a  work  of  word-exegesis,  while 
the  one  that  afterward  displaced  it  was 
rather  a  work  of  thought-exegesis.  In  the 
former,  I  was  impressed  by  the  force  of 
certain  particular  expressions,  which  I 
could  reconcile  with  only  one  view  of  the 
meaning  of  my  passage;  and  to  the  re- 
quirement of  these  expressions  I  was 
bending  the  interpretation  of  the  whole. 
[  95  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

In  the  latter,  I  was  more  impressed  by  the 
general  thought  of  the  passage  and  the 
larger  relations  in  which  it  stood;  and 
when  I  had  entered  into  this  larger  view 
I  found  that  it  gave  new  light  upon  the 
particular  expressions  that  had  formerly 
seemed  so  decisive.  Under  this  broader 
treatment  I  saw  that  the  passage  most 
naturally  bore  the  meaning  that  I  had  at 
first  rejected;  and  I  am  sure  that  I  was 
acting  on  the  right  principle  when  I  ex- 
changed the  one  interpretation  for  the 
other.  I  can  now  see  that  my  earlier  work 
had  been  more  minute  and  special,  and 
that  in  my  later  work  I  was  using  larger 
and  sounder  principles.  A  man  hesitates 
to  say  that  he  has  advanced  from  narrower 
to  broader  and  juster  methods  in  his 
work,  lest  he  be  judged  guilty  of  conceit 
or  of  spiritual  blindness.  But  I  may  be 
allowed  to  record  my  belief  that  my  mind 
was  moving  in  the  right  direction. 

Perhaps  I  may  say  that  I  have  never 
t  96  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

had  any  hesitation  about  giving  up  an 
interpretation  that  I  have  held  when  a 
better  one  appeared,  or  about  avowing 
the  change.  If  I  cling  to  what  I  have 
because  it  is  my  own,  I  have  no  assurance 
of  finding  that  which  is  the  Lord's.  I  am 
reminded  that  before  the  same  body  of 
ministers  I  have  read  two  papers,  a  few 
years  apart,  on  what  is  called  the  Bap- 
tism of  the  Holy  Spirit,  maintaining  two 
opposite  views  of  the  matter.  The  differ- 
ence between  them  was  very  much  like 
the  difference  between  my  two  views  of 
the  seventh  chapter  of  Romans.  The 
earlier  interpretation  was  narrowed  in 
this  case  also  by  too  exclusive  attention 
to  special  terms:  the  later  was  broadened 
by  the  free  admission  of  general  princi- 
ples. My  conviction  in  favor  of  the  latter 
was  a  conviction  of  sounder  and  worthier 
kind  than  its  predecessor.  At  first  I  said, 
"The  Scriptures  limit  me  to  this":  later  J 
I  said,  "The  Scriptures  open  my  way  to 
[  97  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

this."  At  first  I  was  regarding  the  re- 
straints of  the  Bible:  afterward  I  was 
following  out  its  spirit. 

The  decade  of  the  Seventies  was  the 
period  of  Lives  of  Christ  and  similar 
books,  and  I,  like  all  my  generation,  came 
thus  under  a  healthful  influence.  Not 
that  the  entire  contribution  of  the  Lives 
of  Christ  was  either  permanent  or  essen- 
tially valuable.  Most  of  them  have  al- 
ready been  left  behind,  and  in  general  the 
idea  that  a  genuine  biography  of  our 
Master  can  be  written  is  passing  away. 
We  are  learning  that  our  materials  are 
not  of  the  right  kind  for  such  work. 
Nevertheless,  the  Lives  of  Christ  brought 
us  a  genuine  blessing.  They  were  the 
popular  and  effective  part  of  a  large  move- 
ment to  bring  him  out  of  the  region  of 
dogmatic  conceptions,  partly  unreal,  into 
the  realm  of  real  life.  To  vivify  our  men- 
tal image  of  Jesus  the  modern  knowledge 
[  98  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

of  history,  geography,  and  archaeology 
brought  its  treasures,  and  the  great  theme 
was  presented  by  an  imagination  enlight- 
ened by  this  new  knowledge,  as  well  as 
by  the  old  love  and  reverence.  The  apos- 
tolic history,  too,  was  enriched  by  the 
same  manifold  contribution.  But  the 
main  point  was  that  study  of  the  Saviour 
of  the  world,  from  being  a  study  of  doc- 
trinal conceptions,  now  became  study  of  a 
living  person,  into  which  all  the  wealth  of 
this  illuminating  knowledge  was  poured. 
My  own  share  in  this  benefit  was  just 
such  as  I  have  now  described.  For  me 
Jesus  really  took  his  place  among  the 
living  facts  of  history,  more  vividly  than 
ever  before.  The  Old  Testament  had 
never  ceased  to  glow  with  the  light  it 
had  received  in  the  days  of  my  first  pas- 
torate from  Stanley's  "Lectures  on  the 
History  of  the  Jewish  Church,"  and  now 
the  New  Testament  received  a  similar 
illumination.  Here  I  am  indebted  to  a 
[  99  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

book  that  did  not  long  remain  among  my 
counsellors.  Farrar's  "Life  of  Christ" 
even  then  seemed  much  too  rhetorical  for 
its  subject,  and  much  too  ingenious  in 
piecing  the  narratives  together  and  build- 
ing up  meanings  that  depended  upon  the 
combination;  but  despite  its  faults  it  did 
give  my  mind  a  powerful  impulse  toward 
conceiving  Jesus  Christ  as  real.  His 
"Life  and  Work  of  Paul"  brought  similar 
help  toward  living  in  the  midst  of  the 
apostolic  age.  Other  books  stood  in  the 
same  helpful  company.  Out  of  this 
period  of  biography  there  came  to  me  an 
influence  that  made  the  whole  New 
Testament  more  full  of  the  glow  and  in- 
terest of  life.  But  more  important  than 
this  general  result  was  the  distinctness, 
the  practicality,  the  living  force,  that 
these  studies  imparted  to  my  conception 
of  Jesus  Christ  himself.  The  Jesus  of 
my  later  years  is  the  Jesus  that  rose  be- 
fore my  vision  in  the  divine  beauty  of  his 
f  100  1 


THE  SEVENTIES 

human  life  under  the  influence  of  this 
period  of  biographies.  And  I  wish  to  call 
attention  to  the  fact  that  this  new  vitaliz- 
ing of  my  conception  of  Jesus  Christ  is 
an  essential  element  in  that  change  con- 
cerning the  Bible  which  these  reminis- 
cences are  intended  to  record. 

An  influence  of  quite  another  kind 
now  came  in  effectively  to  modify  my  con- 
ception of  the  Bible,  and  I  can  truly  say 
that  in  the  resulting  change  I  was  follow- 
ing whither  the  Bible  itself  led  me.  I 
have  never  been  urgently  interested  in 
the  subject  of  the  second  advent,  and  yet 
that  subject  has  filled  a  more  prominent 
place  in  my  religious  history  than  one 
would  expect.  I  was  brought  up  in  a  way 
that  promised  trouble,  for  I  was  taught  in 
my  childhood  that  the  kingdom  of  Christ 
had  a  long  and  glorious  future  in  this 
present  world,  and  yet  that  the  end  was 
always  imminent,  and  any  day  he  might 


SIXTY  'YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

descend  from  heaven  for  judgment.  The 
theory  put  the  end  indefinitely  far  away, 
and  yet  I  listened  trembling  for  the 
trump  of  God  in  every  thunder-storm. 
Some  time,  of  course,  this  contradiction 
would  have  to  be  disposed  of;  and  in  fact 
this  was  one  of  the  first  regions  in  which 
my  views  of  the  Bible  began  to  be  clarified. 
During  the  Seventies  I  was  usually  in 
attendance  upon  a  weekly  conference  of 
ministers  living  in  and  about  a  city,  at 
which  all  sorts  of  religious  and  theological 
topics  were  discussed.  More  than  once  in 
the  decade  the  advent  question  was  taken 
up,  being  a  question  that  men  were  inter- 
ested in  discussing  as  they  are  not  now, 
and  on  both  sides  of  it  I  heard  as  able  ad- 
vocates as  our  denomination  contained. 
Thepremillennial  andpostmillennial  views 
of  the  advent  were  presented,  elaborated, 
and  defended,  sometimes  with  conspic- 
uous power.  It  was  not  in  vain,  though 
the  results  were  not  such  as  the  dispu- 
[  102  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

tants  were  seeking.  In  consequence  of 
the  discussion  several  things  became  clear 
to  me,  some  at  once  and  some  on  further 
reflection. 

The  first  thing  that  I  observed  was  that 
neither  of  the  t\vo  theories  could  be  better 
defended  from  the  Bible  than  the  other. 
Either  could  be  defended  perfectly  well, 
by  making  proper  selection  of  proof- 
texts.  The  Bible  contained  the  confident 
prediction  of  an  early  advent,  and  at  the 
same  time  it  contained  an  outlook  upon 
the  future  that  neither  included  an  early 
advent  nor  had  place  for  one.  I  observed 
that  both  doctrines  were  obtainable  from 
the  Bible,  but  was  impressed  by  the  fact 
that  neither  one  was  the  doctrine  of  the 
Bible  as  a  whole.  In  the  sense  of  being 
found  in  the  Scriptures,  both  were  script- 
ural; but  in  the  better  sense  of  rightly 
representing  the  Scriptures,  neither  was 
scriptural.  The  contesting  theories  had 
been  too  successful  in  debate:  each  by 
[  103  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

its  very  success  had  destroyed  not   only 
the  other  but  itself. 

At  first  I  did  not  see  how  much  this 
meant,  but  gradually  it  came  to  me,  and 
a  very  important  change  in  my  convic- 
tions was  a  necessary  result.  It  was 
borne  in  upon  me  that  the  Bible  con- 
tains material  for  two  opposite  and 
irreconcilable  doctrines  about  the  early 
return  of  Christ  to  this  world.  Both 
doctrines  cannot  be  true:  one  of  them 
at  least  must  rest  upon  misjudgment. 
Since  this  is  the  fact,  it  certainly  cannot 
be  that  I  am  required  to  believe  all 
that  the  Bible  says  because  the  Bible 
says  it.  If  either  one  of  the  theories  is 
true,  no  matter  which,  I  certainly  am  not 
bound  by  the  testimony  that  the  Bible 
bears  in  favor  of  the  other.  Whatever 
its  nature  may  be,  the  book  in  which  these 
facts  are  found  cannot  have  been  given 
me  by  God  as  a  book  that  bears  his  own 
authority  in  support  of  all  its  statements. 
[  104  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

The  book  from  which  these  two  theories 
can  be  drawn  is  of  necessity  a  different 
book  from  that.  Thus  the  Bible  itself, 
upon  examination,  shows  me  that  it  is  not 
a  book  infallible  throughout,  in  which  error 
does  not  exist,  and  that  I  am  not  required 
to  say  that  it  is.  This  negative  statement 
followed  plainly  from  the  discussion. 

Of  course  the  corresponding  positive 
statement  was  just  as  evidently  true. 
The  discussion  showed  that  upon  one 
point  at  least  the  early  Christians,  includ- 
ing apostles  and  writers  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament, were  mistaken — not  only  could 
be  mistaken,  but  were.  They  believed 
that  their  Lord  was  soon  to  return  to 
this  world  in  visible  glory.  He  did  not 
so  return:  hence  they  cherished  an  ex- 
pectation that  was  wrong.  This  I  was  re- 
quired to  affirm  on  the  authority  of  facts, 
even  though  the  disappointed  expectation 
stands  recorded  on  the  pages  of  the  Bible. 
I  was  required  to  affirm  it  in  fact ;  on  the 
[  105  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

authority  of  the  Bible  itself.  Of  this  I 
could  have  no  doubt.  It  is  true  that  I 
heard  some  of  the  best  men  I  knew  labor- 
ing hard  to  show  that  the  expectation  did 
not  exist,  but  their  labor  was  in  vain.  I 
saw  that  it  did  exist,  and  that  it  proved 
to  be  a  false  expectation.  Arguments  to 
the  contrary  were  quibbles,  well-meant 
though  they  were.  At  present,  of  course, 
the  intense  vitality  of  the  advent  hope  is 
one  of  the  commonplaces  of  New  Testa- 
ment knowledge.  No  one  who  professes 
scholarship  at  all  ever  thinks  of  doubting 
it.  At  that  time,  however,  understanding 
of  the  matter  was  less  advanced,  and  it  is 
less  surprising  than  it  would  be  now  that 
the  fact  could  be  argued  against.  Never- 
theless, upon  me  the  truth  was  dawning: 
how  could  it  fail  to  dawn  ?  I  perceived 
that  writers  in  the  Bible  had  recorded 
unquestioning  expectation  of  the  almost 
immediate  occurrence  of  an  event  that 
has  never  occurred  at  all.  Certainly  they 
[  106  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

were  in  error  on  that  point.  Their  in- 
spiration, of  whatever  kind  it  was,  was 
not  a  safeguard  against  this  error,  but 
allowed  them,  or  rather  perhaps  impelled 
them,  to  work  their  mistaken  view  of  the 
immediate  future  into  our  holy  book. 

From  all  this  it  followed  that  I  was  not 
obliged  to  agree  with  these  writers  in  all 
that  they  had  written,  or  to  look  upon 
them  as  infallible  guides.  It  did  not  fol- 
low that  therefore  I  ought  to  throw  the 
Bible  away,  and  I  am  thankful  that  that 
foolish  suggestion  so  often  supposed  to 
attend  upon  such  discoveries  did  not 
occur  to  me.  But  it  did  follow  that  I  was 
not  required  to  accept  all  statements  in 
the  Bible  as  true  and  all  views  that  it  con- 
tained as  correct.  Apparently  I  was  a  free 
reader,  not  a  reader  upon  whom  assent 
was  obligatory.  Apparently  I  might  judge 
its  statements  in  view  of  facts.  And  it 
was  not  some  outside  heretic  or  unbeliever 
that  was  persuading  me  to  this  conclu- 
[  107  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

sion :  I  was  led  to  it  by  examination  of  the 
book  itself.  Its  own  contents  bore  wit- 
ness to  its  errancy — to  use  a  word  with 
which  I  afterward  became  familiar.  In 
coming  to  this  judgment  I  was  simply 
going  whither  the  Bible  led  me.  As  I 
look  back  I  wonder  on  what  ground  I 
ought  to  have  proceeded  if  I  was  to  judge 
otherwise.  What  would  any  friend  ad- 
vise ?  How,  starting  from  the  facts  that 
I  first  encountered,  should  I  have  reached 
the  conclusion  that  all  statements  in  the 
Bible  were  binding  upon  me  ? 

I  have  said  that  I  moved  slowly  and 
unevenly  in  the  change  that  I  am  now 
recording.  I  have  dated  this  conviction 
against  the  inerrancy  of  the  Bible  here  in 
the  Seventies,  and  here  it  belongs,  for  at 
this  time  it  was  planted  in  my  mind  and 
I  began  to  be  aware  of  its  presence  and 
its  importance.  But  its  growth  was 
gradual,  and  its  victory  over  my  thinking 
was  slow  in  coming — surer  perhaps  for 
[  108  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

being  slow.  Years  passed  before  it  came 
to  its  own.  This  is  no  wonder,  in  view  of 
my  early  training.  Nevertheless,  when 
the  new  conception  had  made  so  valid  an 
entrance  it  deserved  well  of  the  future, 
and  was  sure  to  do  its  work. 

Not  from  without  myself,  but  from 
within,  came  the  next  great  modification 
of  my  view  of  the  Bible.  The  hint  in- 
deed was  external,  but  no  more.  The 
field  was  doctrinal.  At  various  times 
already  I  had  given  some  study  to  various 
doctrines  of  the  Christian  religion.  In 
my  first  pastorate  I  studied,  as  well  as  I 
could,  the  doctrine  of  sin,  and  made  some 
gains  that  were  permanent.  But  what  I 
now  entered  upon  was  not  so  much  a  study 
as  an  experience.  Now  for  the  first  time 
I  was  impelled,  and  compelled,  to  work 
my  way  through  from  obscurity  to  clear 
light,  upon  one  of  the  great  historical 
Christian  doctrines. 

[  109  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

One  Sunday,  late  in  the  Seventies,  I 
was  conversing  with  a  Sunday-school  class 
about  the  fourth  chapter  of  the  First 
Epistle  of  John.  We  were  talking  of  the 
words,  "Herein  is  love;  not  that  we  loved 
God,  but  that  he  loved  us,  and  sent  his 
Son  to  be  the  propitiation  for  our  sins." 
Of  course  the  conversation  turned  upon 
the  atonement,  w^hich  was  a  fixed  point  in 
the  doctrinal  belief  of  us  all.  I  do  not 
remember  what  was  said  by  any  of  us,  but 
I  do  remember  how  the  impression  was 
borne  in  upon  me  that  I  did  not  know 
what  the  familiar  passage  meant.  I  con- 
fessed to  myself  that  in  my  heart  I  did  not 
know  what  an  atonement  was,  or  what 
was  meant  when  the  Son  of  God  was 
called  the  propitiation  for  our  sins.  I 
had  always  believed  in  the  atonement  of 
Christ,  in  the  ordinary  manner,  which  is 
not  a  very  vital  manner.  While  I  was  a 
student  I  had  worked  out  a  sketch  of  the 
history  of  the  doctrine,  and  had  some 


THE  SEVENTIES 

conception  of  the  course  of  Christian 
thought  on  the  subject.  I  had  never  sup- 
posed myself  to  be  holding  any  very 
definite  theory  of  the  atonement.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  like  most  ministers  then 
and  now,  I  had  held  a  group  of  ideas  that 
represented  fragments  of  various  theories 
which,  if  I  had  analyzed  them,  I  should 
have  found  ill-assorted  and  inconclusive. 
I  had  long  been  dimly  aware  that  in  the 
centre  of  that  doctrine  there  lay  a  region 
that  I  had  never  adequately  explored. 
I  had  not  been  especially  uneasy  about 
it,  for  I  knew  the  subject  to  be  mysteri- 
ous, and  had  not  blamed  myself  for  not 
understanding  it;  moreover,  I  had  been 
occupied  with  other  works  and  studies,  and 
the  question  had  not  forced  itself  upon  me. 
But  now  it  claimed  its  rights.  On  that 
Sunday  afternoon  I  went  home  under  the 
spell  of  a  new  compulsion,  for  I  knew  that 
from  that  hour  I  was  called  to  find  out 
for  myself  what  the  atonement  was.  It 
[  Hi  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

proved  that  I  was  right.  There  was  no 
rest  for  me  till  I  had  worked  the  prob- 
lem through.  Not  in  agony,  it  is  true, 
and  yet  with  all  earnestness,  I  bent  to  the 
work. 

I  read  some  books  on  the  doctrine, 
without  finding  anything  that  went  to  the 
bottom  of  it.  I  remember  reading  a  book 
that  was  then  offering  itself  as  a  standard 
on  the  subject,  rushing  eagerly  along  in 
suspense  till  I  should  reach  the  conclu- 
sion that  I  saw  held  out  before  me  in  the 
final  chapter,  only  to  find  it  vague  and 
lame  and  unsatisfactory.  I  remember 
another  book,  that  claimed  to  be  all  bib- 
lical; but  its  very  abundance  of  biblical 
language  weighed  it  down  with  a  hopeless 
burden  of  ambiguities.  I  studied  the 
Bible  faithfully.  But  I  found  there  vari- 
ous views  of  what  Christ  had  done — one 
set  of  ideas  in  Paul,  another  in  the  Johan- 
nine  writings,  and  another  in  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews.  I  perceived  that  these 


THE  SEVENTIES 

were  views  of  the  great  reality  from 
various  points,  and  that  they  could  not 
be  combined  into  one  clear  doctrine.  I 
perceived,  too,  that  it  was  not  possible 
for  any  mind  to  agree  with  all  these  utter- 
ances, except  in  the  broadest  sense,  if  in- 
deed a  modern  mind  could  really  think 
any  of  them  precisely  as  the  writers 
thought  them  long  ago.  So  I  could  not 
solve  my  problem  by  adducing  the  testi- 
mony of  Scripture  concerning  the  atone- 
ment as  clear  and  final. 

But  I  was  not  seriously  troubled  by 
being  thus  left  without  an  authoritative 
statement,  for  my  subject  was  drawing  me 
on  in  another  direction.  The  question 
before  me  was  not  one  that  could  be  de- 
cided for  me  by  authoritative  statements 
unless  I  was  content  with  the  most  exter- 
nal kind  of  explanation;  and  I  was  seek- 
ing nothing  less  than  the  genuine  interior 
meaning.  The  question  was,  What  is  it 
that  the  good  God  and  Father  of  Jesus 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

Christ  has  done  in  him  for  us  in  our  sin- 
fulness?  If  this  could  be  answered  by 
a  text  or  a  formula,  still,  I  should  have  to 
inquire  what  the  text  or  formula  meant, 
for  it  would  not  serve  my  necessity  at  all, 
except  as  it  embodied  some  large  spiritual 
principle.  And  I  now  saw  clearly  in  what 
region  the  question  lay.  It  lay  in  the 
realm  of  ethics.  The  decisive  fact  is  the 
character  of  God.  The  God  whom  Jesus 
Christ  has  revealed  to  us  has  acted  in  ac- 
cordance with  what  he  is.  In  this  work 
he  has  acted  out  his  real  self.  It  was 
morally  impossible  for  me  to  believe  that 
he  has  done  anything  for  our  salvation  that 
does  not  accord  with  and  express  his  own 
character.  If  a  voice  of  inspiration  or  a 
voice  from  heaven  had  told  me  that  he 
had,  I  should  have  been  compelled  to  say 
that  the  voice  was  not  from  God.  And  if 
I  am  to  find  out  what  he  has  done,  I  must 
find  it  out  not  at  the  dictation  of  voices, 
whether  from  earth  or  heaven,  but  in  the 


THE  SEVENTIES 

light  of  the  ethical  and  spiritual  princi- 
ples that  the  revelation  of  Christ  gives 
me  to  be  the  guides  of  my  inquiry.  That 
is  to  say,  God  does  not  dictate  to  me  an 
explanation  of  his  gracious  work.  If  I 
wish  to  understand  it  better,  I  must 
search  it  out  in  the  light  of  God  himself. 

So  I  found  myself  doing  just  what  I 
felt  that  I  had  been  commissioned  to  do: 
I  was  inquiring  for  myself  what  the 
atonement  was — not  what  the  Old  Tes- 
tament had  foreshadowed,  or  what  Paul 
thought  it  was,  or  what  it  seemed  to  be 
in  the  light  of  the  Jewish  law,  or  what 
the  church  had  taught,  or  what  theolo- 
gians had  built  up  into  doctrine,  but  what 
it  really  was,  in  the  best  moral  and  spirit- 
ual light  that  the  Christian  revelation  min- 
istered to  the  inquiry.  To  do  a  man's  work 
in  this  great  quest  was  my  business  for  the 
time,  and  I  could  no  more  take  my  con- 
clusion from  dictation  of  the  Bible  than 
I  could  from  dictation  of  the  church. 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

I  was  constrained  to  go  back  of  both. 
I  must  search  out  for  myself  how  the 
principles  of  the  divine  character  had 
been  wrought  out  in  a  work  of  help  for 
sinful  beings:  and  this  I  found  myself 
bending  my  best  energies  to  do.  The 
Bible  was  my  indispensable  and  inval- 
uable helper  in  the  quest,  but  it  had  not 
been  offered  to  me  by  God  as  containing 
the  ready  and  final  answer  to  my  ques- 
tion, as  I  once  supposed  it  had.  The 
answer  I  myself  must  find. 

For  months  I  was  held  to  my  task  by 
a  power  from  which  there  was  no  escape 
— from  which  indeed  I  had  no  desire  to 
escape.  It  was  a  great  experience;  for 
now,  under  an  impulse  that  I  knew  to  be 
from  God,  my  best  powers  were  for  the 
first  time  grappling  with  the  prime  moral 
facts  of  existence.  I  had  been  handling 
divine  realities  all  my  years,  but  never 
until  now  had  I  been  under  such  strong 
and  joyful  constraint  in  dealing  with 

t 


THE  SEVENTIES 

them.  Such  labor  could  not  be  in  vain  in 
the  Lord,  and  to  me  it  was  richly  fruitful. 
After  a  time,  when  I  had  begun  to  be 
satisfied  that  my  work  was  yielding  true 
results,  I  embodied  my  conclusions  in  a 
paper,  which  I  entitled,  "The  Saving  In- 
terposition of  God."  Naturally  it  con- 
sisted of  two  parts,  a  negative  and  a 
positive,  or  a  destructive  and  a  construc- 
tive, if  one  chooses  to  call  them  so.  Nat- 
urally also,  the  first  part  was  better  than 
the  second.  In  the  first  part  I  brought 
out  the  ethical  principles  of  the  divine 
character,  which  the  Christian  revelation 
has  brought  to  light,  and  allowed  them 
to  sweep  away  such  elements  in  the  in- 
herited doctrine  of  the  atonement  as 
could  not  abide  in  their  company.  They 
swept  much  away.  I  felt,  and  still  feel, 
all  things  considered,  that  this  indispen- 
sable preliminary  work  was  well  done. 
I  certainly  set  forth  some  unquestionable 
truths,  by  which  some  ancient  statements 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

of  the  doctrine  of  salvation  were  rendered 
impossible.  I  did  not  need  to  prove  the 
impossibility  of  these,  for  the  ethical  po- 
sitions that  I  advanced  carried  their  own 
evidence.  Having  thus  cleared  the  ground 
I  proceeded  to  constructive  work,  endeav- 
oring to  set  forth  the  true  doctrine.  But  I 
had  not  yet  followed  my  problem  far 
enough  to  be  thoroughly  ready  for  the 
constructive  task,  and  it  was  only  natural 
that  the  second  part  should  not  satisfy  me 
so  well  as  the  first.  Yet  even  in  this  more 
exacting  field  I  know  that  I  presented 
some  affirmations  that  belong  to  the  body 
of  eternal  truth,  and  offered  a  doctrine 
more  in  accordance  with  the  divine  char- 
acter revealed  in  Christ  than  any  that 
I  had  ever  been  taught. 

I  read  the  paper  before  a  club  of  min- 
isters of  which  I  was  a  member,  where  it 
was  variously  received,  as  I  expected.  It 
was  never  published,  but  it  had  a  consid- 
erable circulation  by  lending.  Men  of 
t  H8  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

my  own  age,  many  of  them,  were  eager 
to  be  led  into  more  simple  and  spiritual 
thought  upon  this  great  theme,  and  wel- 
comed a  comrade's  work.  Several  times 
for  months  together  the  paper  was  out  of 
my  possession,  travelling  from  hand  to 
hand.  As  much  as  twelve  or  fifteen  years 
later  I  received  a  request  for  the  loan  of 
it,  from  a  man  who  was  beyond  the  orig- 
inal circle  of  its  acquaintance.  How  far 
the  readers  agreed  with  it  I  do  not  know, 
but  it  helped  them  to  think  in  normal 
fashion,  to  accept  their  freedom  of  reject- 
ing the  untenable,  and  to  apply  their 
best  moral  judgment  to  the  apprehension 
of  divine  truth.  The  subject  was  alive 
for  them,  and  my  treatment  of  it,  spring- 
ing from  my  own  soul,  was  recognized  as 
a  vital  work. 

It  now  seems  to  me  strange  and  rather 
sad  that  I  had  lived  well  toward  my  for- 
tieth year  without  encountering  that  strong 
inward  necessity  that  compelled  me  to 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

make  my  doctrine  my  own.  But  I  fear 
there  is  reason  to  believe  that  many  min- 
isters live  as  long,  or  longer,  perhaps  even 
all  their  lives,  without  experiencing  this 
particular  kind  of  work  of  grace  in  their 
souls.  A  work  of  grace  it  is,  and  any  man 
is  to  be  congratulated  who  hears  and 
answers  this  call  of  God  to  better  knowl- 
edge of  divine  realities.  With  me  the  ex- 
perience was  not  an  agonizing  struggle, 
but  if  it  had  been  it  would  still  have  been 
a  gift  to  be  thankful  for. 

This  story  has  its  rightful  place  in  the 
present  narrative,  because  this  experience 
counts  very  largely  in  the  history  of  my 
relation  to  the  Bible.  The  work  of  years 
had  brought  me  up  to  a  point  where  I  was 
ready  for  a  method  different  from  that 
which  I  had  followed  before.  I  may  de- 
scribe my  forward  step  by  saying  that 
hitherto  I  had  been  using  the  Bible  in  the 
light  of  its  statements,  but  that  now  I 
[  120  ] 


THE  SEVENTIES 

found  myself  using  it  in  the  light  of  its 
principles.  Its  great  revealed  truths, 
rather  than  its  special  declarations,  were 
guiding  me  in  the  study  to  which  I  was 
now  impelled.  I  was  not  asking  what  the 
Bible  specifically  said  upon  my  theme, 
but  was  taking  the  large  truths  that  the 
Bible  brought  me,  and  wielding  them  as 
my  instruments  in  a  spiritual  work  of  in- 
quiry. I  was  not  collecting  the  testimony 
of  authoritative  passages;  I  was  moving 
in  the  spirit  of  the  Bible  toward  appre- 
hension of  the  great  salvation  of  God. 
Thus  in  my  investigation  I  was  using  the 
Bible  as  a  man  naturally  and  rightly  uses 
helps  to  knowledge — not  that  he  may 
serve  them,  but  that  they  may  serve  him. 
I  was  acting  on  the  principle  that  the 
Bible  was  made  for  man,  not  man  for  the 
Bible,  as  I  am  sure  the  Master  would 
have  me  act.  I  was  exercising  my  Chris- 
tian freedom  in  seizing  the  great  princi- 
ples of  divine  revelation,  and  using  them 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

for  further  exploration  of  the  works  of 
God.  In  thus  applying  the  great  princi- 
ples of  revelation  I  was  doing  exactly 
what  Paul  and  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews 
had  done  before  me.  They  sought  out 
the  meaning  of  the  divine  gospel  of  re- 
demption in  days  when  it  meant  some- 
thing to  talk  of  the  Jewish  law:  I  was 
called  to  do  the  same  in  days  when  the 
Jewish  law  belongs  to  the  far  past,  and 
universal  ethical  principles  must  be  the 
guiding  light,  and  the  character  of  God 
revealed  in  Christ  is  the  decisive  test. 
This  work,  so  like  the  work  of  prophets 
and  apostles,  I  was  not  afraid  to  under- 
take, for  I  had  come  out  into  the  liberty  of 
the  sons  of  God,  where  I  could  freely  take 
my  Father's  revelation  as  the  guide  of  my 
personal  endeavor.  At  the  end  of  these 
studies  I  was  another  man  than  on  that 
Sunday  afternoon  when  my  face  was 
turned  toward  the  new  investigation. 
Far  more  truly  than  ever  before  I  had 


THE   SEVENTIES 

entered  upon  freedom  of  inquiry,  and  a 
broad  world  was  before  me,  which  I  was 
sure  that  I  should  find  to  be  the  world  of 
God.  And  the  Bible  had  become  the  in- 
strument of  my  liberty, 


[  123  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

AT  the  very  beginning  of  the  Eighties 
a  great  change-  came  to  all  my  mental 
operations  through  a  change  in  the  scene 
of  my  work.  From  my  pastorate  of  the 
Seventies  I  went  to  another  which  was  as 
unlike  it  as  possible  in  the  conditions  of 
life  and  thought.  I  carried  myself  with 
me,  and  all  my  past,  but  no  man  could 
be  the  same  in  the  two  places.  Any  man 
would  be  changed  by  such  a  transfer: 
that  is,  to  speak  after  the  manner  of  the 
operation  of  God,  he  would  be  devel- 
oped, the  new  atmosphere  stimulating  in 
some  new  manner  the  growth  of  his  mind. 
In  my  case,  changes  began  at  once.  For 
one  thing,  I  immediately  threw  off  the 


THE  EIGHTIES 

practice  of  reading  sermons.  That  is  to 
say,  I  threw  it  off  as  a  regular  practice 
from  the  very  first  day  in  my  new  field, 
and  my  bondage  to  it,  such  as  it  was,  fell 
away.  I  wrote  and  read  when  I  chose, 
and  preached  in  all  ways  between  that 
and  purely  extemporaneous  work.  This 
emancipation  the  spirit  of  the  new  en- 
vironment brought  me,  and  evidently  this 
was  an  exercise  of  freedom  that  tended 
to  the  enlargement  of  freedom.  This  in 
general  was  the  characteristic  of  the  new 
life  upon  which  I  now  entered,  that  I 
found  greater  liberty  in  my  mental  and 
spiritual  movements  than  before.  I  stood 
as  a  freer  man.  I  can  see  plainly  now 
that  the  experience  which  I  have  just 
narrated  had  been  leading  me  straight 
out  into  the  larger  place  in  which  I  found 
myself;  but  I  did  not  understand  it  so 
well  then. 

I  was  not  designing  any  new  methods 
in  the  use  of  the  Bible,  but  expected  sim- 

r  125  i 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

ply  to  go  on  using  it  as  I  had  done  hith- 
erto. At  first  I  was  doing  no  special  work 
with  it,  except  in  preaching.  But  in 
preaching  I  felt  the  new  liberty  and  ex- 
altation. Utterance  was  more  and  more 
a  delight.  With  this  new  joy  came  nat- 
urally a  fresh  enjoyment  in  the  wealth  of 
the  Scriptures.  Never  more  than  in 
those  days  have  I  enjoyed  bringing  out 
of  the  treasury  things  new  and  old,  and 
at  no  period  have  I  found  larger  things  in 
the  treasury  to  be  brought  forth.  But 
though  I  was  not  planning  new  methods 
with  the  Bible,  I  was  using  them.  It  was 
impossible  that  my  experience  in  search- 
ing out  the  atonement  should  be  without 
immediate  and  valuable  fruit  in  my  ordi- 
nary work.  In  preaching  now  it  was  im- 
possible that  I  should  refrain  from  using 
the  Bible  as  I  had  discovered  my  right  to 
use  it  then.  The  bygone  conditions  could 
never  be  restored.  I  was  handling  the 
Bible  now  more  personally,  more  as  my- 
[  126  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

self,  and  more  as  if  I  had  a  right  to  handle 
it.  I  still  practised  exegesis  with  undimin- 
ished  fidelity,  but  the  process  was  further 
removed  from  my  sermonizing  than  be- 
fore. My  message  was  not  so  directly 
borrowed  from  the  Bible  as  in  former 
years,  and  was  more  suggested  or  inspired 
by  it.  Not  the  sight  of  my  eyes  upon  the 
page,  so  much  as  the  experience  of  mind 
and  heart  with  its  truths,  was  placing  it 
at  my  disposal.  Around  me  were  many 
who  seemed  to  me  to  reverence  the  Bible 
more  for  what  it  was  than  for  what  it 
contained;  but  for  my  part  I  was  priz- 
ing it  now  for  what  it  contained,  and 
was  using  my  Christian  liberty,  as  man- 
fully as  I  might,  to  make  its  spirit- 
ual message  clear,  unhampered,  and  ef- 
fective. 

It  scarcely  need  be  added  that  my  the- 
ology was  changing  meanwhile,  for  neither 
the  outcome  nor  the  method  of  my  work 
on  the  atonement  could  allow  it  to  stand 
[    127   ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

unaltered,  and  in  the  new  atmosphere  of 
liberty  I  was  certain  to  advance.  The 
process  of  change  consisted  mainly  in  this 
same  thing,  that  I  was  taking  up  the 
great  truths  of  revelation,  and  using  them 
for  myself  as  truths,  and  following  them 
to  their  application  and  result  in  doc- 
trine, and  allowing  them  to  assimilate 
whatever  could  live  with  them  and  ex- 
pel whatever  could  not.  This  I  con- 
ceive to  be  the  right  way  to  form  one's 
doctrinal  conceptions.  This  revolution- 
ary and  reconstructive  work,  which  is 
the  proper  work  of  truth  as  it  is  in 
Jesus,  was  taking  a  place  in  my  life 
that  it  had  not  held  before.  The  time 
was  a  period  of  enlargement  to  me,  and 
of  enlargement  that  I  felt  to  be  normal 
to  a  child  of  God.  The  experience  was 
defective  enough  through  fault  and  weak- 
ness of  my  own,  but  it  was  a  genuine  ex- 
perience of  growth  into  more  abundant 
life.  And  if  I  were  to  give  it  a  name, 
[  128  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

I    should    call    it   a    passing   over   from 
traditionalism  to  reality. 

Now  it  was  that  the  Revised  New  Tes- 
tament appeared.  The  first  copy  of  it 
that  I  saw  was  sent  to  me  by  a  religious 
newspaper,  to  be  read  and  reported  upon. 
I  welcomed  it  with  all  my  heart,  and  used 
it  in  public  worship,  from  the  first  Sun- 
day. One  of  my  men,  seeing  it  in  my 
hand  on  that  first  Sunday  morning,  said, 
"I  hate  that."  But  I  was  able  to  con- 
vince him  that  he  had  not  hated  wisely, 
or  understood  the  book  that  he  hated. 
How  glad  I  was  when  it  came !  I  remem- 
bered back  into  the  days  when  revision  of 
King  James's  Bible  was  discussed  among 
American  Christians,  and  recalled  the 
bitterness  of  the  opposition — opposition 
grounded  largely  in  failure  to  understand 
the  fact  that  the  Bible  is  a  translated 
book,  and  still  more  in  that  reverence 
for  the  familiar  words  which  sprang  from 
[  129  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

belief  in  verbal  inspiration.  I  had  had 
my  hereditary  hesitations  about  revision, 
but  they  were  long  since  vanished.  And 
now,  when  I  was  barely  in  middle  age,  the 
prejudice  against  revision  had  already 
been  so  far  overcome  that  the  book  was 
actually  in  my  hands,  issued  with  splendid 
backing  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 
Doubtless  it  was  not  perfect,  and  it  had 
still  to  win  its  way,  but  the  beginning  of 
improvement  had  been  made,  the  new 
conditions  had  been  established,  and  the 
good  result  was  sure.  Now,  I  said  to  my- 
self, those  things  that  I  had  known  to  be 
true  about  many  a  passage,  but  which 
the  people  could  not  know  except  through 
explanations  which  they  might  deem 
pedantic,  and  destructive,  too,  could  be 
known  to  all  readers.  Now,  when  this 
book  had  won  its  way,  the  thoughts  of  the 
Bible  would  be  more  independent  of  the 
words:  there  was  some  chance  that  peo- 
ple who  hung  upon  the  very  words  of 
[  130  ] 


THE   EIGHTIES 

Scripture  might  come  to  glory  in  the 
preciousness  of  the  very  thoughts  and 
the  very  truths.  Now  was  doomed  that 
narrow  reverence  for  the  very  words 
which  gathered  around  the  impossible 
doctrine  of  verbal  inspiration.  For  the 
coming  of  this  book  was  only  a  part  of  a 
great  movement  of  the  age  toward  mak- 
ing the  Bible  and  Christ  and  divine  re- 
ligion more  real  to  the  people,  a  move- 
ment in  which  I  with  joy  would  bear  my 
little  part.  When  the  Revised  Old  Tes- 
tament appeared,  four  years  later,  there 
was  less  of  thrill  and  glow  in  the  recep- 
tion of  it,  but  the  welcome  was  the  same 
in  principle.  The  Bible  was  now  more 
ready  to  my  hand,  for  the  uses  to  which 
I  was  called  to  put  it.  I  grasped  the  Re- 
vision as  a  better  weapon  for  the  warfare 
of  the  Lord. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  my  first  book 
was  written,  a  Commentary  on  the  Gos- 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

pel  of  Mark,  for  a  series  on  the  New 
Testament,  issued  by  a  denominational 
publishing  house.  By  no  fault  of  mine, 
the  writing  was  crowded  into  a  very  short 
period,  and  for  months  I  almost  thought 
of  nothing  else.  But  the  work  was  done 
with  eagerness  and  joy.  New  thoughts 
about  the  Bible  were  not  diminishing  my 
zest  for  it.  I  was  now  studying  the  Lord's 
life  in  its  simplest  and  most  vivid  form, 
and  it  was  a  perpetual  delight  to  comment 
upon  the  doings  of  the  living  Jesus. 

My  manner  of  treating  the  Scriptures 
was  not  satisfactory  to  all  my  readers:  in 
fact,  it  was  suspected  by  many,  and  con- 
demned by  some.  At  present,  however, 
it  would  have  good  standing  as  conserva- 
tive, so  far  has  conservatism  moved  on. 
It  is  true  that  I  had  little  occasion  to 
speak  of  the  nature  of  the  Scriptures,  or 
to  raise  the  question  of  their  inspiration; 
but  when  I  went  right  on  interpreting  my 
Gospel  in  the  best  light  of  reality  that  I 
[  132  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

could  obtain,  without  regard  to  any  the- 
ories at  all,  some  thought  me  to  be  on 
dangerous  ground.  The  only  paragraph 
in  which  I  alluded  to  inspiration  con- 
tained the  remark,  which  seems  to  me  to 
have  been  tenable,  that  the  Bible  is  in- 
spired as  it  is  inspired,  and  not  as  we  may 
think  it  ought  to  be  inspired.  This  was 
stricken  out  by  the  editorial  secretary  of 
the  publishing  society,  with  the  remark 
that  my  views  of  inspiration,  whether  cor- 
rect or  not,  were  far  in  advance  of  those 
of  the  denomination.  This  may  have 
been  true.  I  thought  that  whatever  in- 
spiration there  might  be  in  the  book  must 
be  determined  by  the  qualities  of  the 
book,  not  identified  by  reference  to  a 
definition  or  theory  framed  outside.  I 
well  remember  the  strong  dissent  with 
which  years  earlier  I  encountered  a  defi- 
nition intended  to  safeguard  Christianity, 
to  the  effect  that  inspiration  is  that  divine 
influence  in  writing  which  produces  an 
[  133  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

infallible  record.  I  felt  that  the  definition 
approached  the  subject  from  the  wrong 
side:  if  the  Bible  is  inspired,  we  must 
learn  from  the  Bible  itself  what  the 
qualities  of  its  inspiration  are.  It  was 
this  that  I  was  trying  to  say,  in  the  pas- 
sage that  was  unacceptable.  But  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  I  was  not  writing  on  in- 
spiration: I  was  simply  commenting  on 
the  book  that  lay  before  me,  without  in- 
quiring what  qualities  of  inspiration  it 
might  possess,  or  how  it  came  to  have 
them. 

Work  upon  one  Gospel  naturally  made 
all  the  Gospels  more  familiar.  It  was 
a  part  of  my  task,  in  fact,  to  compare 
them  and  note  their  identities,  resem- 
blances, and  differences.  Inevitably  the 
differences  came  to  light — differences  not 
only  in  phraseology  but  in  narrative,  in 
discourse,  and  in  general  portrayal.  In 
statements  of  fact  and  in  views  of  truth 
I  found  them  more  or  less  divergent.  The 
[  134  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

point  here  to  be  recorded  is  that  these 
differences  suggested  to  my  mind  no 
difficulty  as  to  the  acceptance  of  the 
Gospels  and  their  testimony.  Of  course 
they  were  fatal,  as  I  had  long  known,  to 
the  claim  of  perfect  accuracy  in  all  the 
records,  and  of  an  inspiration  that  would 
produce  it,  but  they  were  not  fatal  to 
confidence  in  the  books.  The  writing  of 
this  commentary  cured  me  of  confidence 
in  the  possibility  of  harmonizing  the 
Gospels  with  much  completeness,  or  of 
weaving  them  into  a  continuous  narra- 
tive, and  placed  them  before  me  as  sepa- 
rate witnesses,  differing  as  witnesses  will 
differ.  When  they  had  taken  this  posi- 
tion there  was  no  trouble  about  accepting 
their  general  testimony:  there  was  noth- 
ing in  variations  to  invalidate  their  story, 
and  I  could  read  them  as  living  records 
of  a  real  life.  At  that  time  the  problem 
of  the  Gospels  was  simpler  than  it  is  now, 
and  many  present-day  questions  I  did 
[  135  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

not  meet.  Nevertheless,  the  principle 
that  gave  me  confidence  then  gives  me 
confidence  still.  My  hold  upon  the  cen- 
tral Person  and  his  story  is  such  that 
changes  in  my  conception  of  facts  about 
the  Gospels  have  not  shaken  my  faith. 

Now  again  the  doctrine  of  the  second 
advent  took  a  disproportionately  promi- 
nent place  in  my  affairs.  It  was  neces- 
sary that  I  should  explain  the  thirteenth 
chapter  of  Mark,  the  great  eschatological 
discourse,  the  dread  of  expositors — unless 
indeed  it  chances  to  be  their  delight.  It 
was  the  part  of  my  task  that  I  dreaded 
most,  for  I  was  well  aware  of  the  diffi- 
culty of  the  passage,  and  certain  that  I 
could  not  stand  for  any  of  the  old  inter- 
pretations. But  I  had  been  thinking 
more  or  less  in  that  field,  ever  since  the 
discussions  of  the  advent  that  I  have 
spoken  of.  Moreover,  in  the  late  Sev- 
enties a  book  treating  the  general  subject 
[  136  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

of  terrestrial  eschatology  had  appeared, 
and  had  been  much  read  and  discussed 
in  the  circle  of  my  acquaintance.  The 
book  was  crude  in  some  respects,  and 
was  far  from  uttering  the  last  word  in  the 
constructive  part,  but  it  was  unanswer- 
able in  its  refutation  of  certain  long- 
accepted  doctrines,  and  at  least  it  pre- 
pared the  way  for  something  better.  It 
has  now  gone  out  of  sight,  for  it  lacked 
some  of  the  qualities  that  make  for  per- 
manence; but  it  freed  many  of  us  from 
inherited  untenable  views  of  the  second 
coming,  and  offered  us  at  least  a  tentative 
doctrine  in  their  place.  Under  this  influ- 
ence I  wrought  out  an  interpretation  of 
the  difficult  chapter  which  satisfied  me 
at  the  time,  and  this  I  embodied  in  my 
commentary. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  what  this  inter- 
pretation was,  for  the  nature  of  it  indi- 
cates again  how  far  from  being  even  and 
consistent    was    the    movement    of    my 
[  137  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

mind.  I  have  spoken  of  the  growing  con- 
viction that  the  early  advent  hope  was 
disappointed.  This  conviction  was  stead- 
ily settling  into  certainty,  and  yet  at  this 
time  I  was  fascinated  by  the  claim  that 
the  hope  had  not  been  disappointed.  I 
still  felt  that  the  prediction  of  an  early 
advent  must  have  been  fulfilled,  and  that 
the  fulfilment  must  be  sought  in  the  early 
history.  So  I  accepted  the  idea  that  the 
fulfilment  occurred  in  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem.  The  taking  of  this  position 
was  not  a  consistent  step  in  my  progress, 
and  yet  it  is  quite  accounted  for  by  that 
blending  of  old  influences  and  new  to 
which  every  advancing  mind  is  subject. 

Knowing  that  my  interpretation  would 
be  objected  to,  I  purposely  made  my 
presentation  of  it  just  as  positive  and  con- 
vincing as  I  could,  in  order  that  it  might 
have  as  good  a  chance  of  favor  as  I  could 
give  it.  As  for  the  interpretation  itself,  it 
now  seems  to  me  to  have  been  a  very 


THE  EIGHTIES 

good  way-station  on  the  journey  to  the 
true  solution  of  the  problem.  At  the 
time,  however,  it  was  the  best  that  I  could 
do,  and  it  was  farther  along  the  road  than 
most  of  my  readers  were  prepared  to  go. 
As  I  expected,  it  suited  almost  no  one. 
After  the  first  edition,  the  publishing 
society  obtained  another  commentary  on 
the  chapter  from  an  older  man,  embody- 
ing one  of  the  more  accepted  views,  and 
bound  it  into  the  book  at  the  end  of  my 
chapter,"  under  the  title  of  "An  Addi- 
tional View."  To  this  I  had  no  objection 
whatever,  and  cordially  gave  the  consent 
which  the  society  courteously  asked.  At 
any  rate,  I  had  made  my  contribution  to- 
ward a  substitute  for  the  old  untenable 
views,  and  that  was  as  much  as  I  could 
hope  to  do. 

As  for  the  commentary  itself,  it  con- 
tains much  that  I  should  now  be  glad  to 
set  right,  for  I  can  see  in  it  many  marks 
of   immature  judgment   and   insufficient 
[  139  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

knowledge.  But  the  writing  of  it  marked 
a  great  step  in  the  forward  movement  of 
my  mind  in  dealing  with  the  Bible.  It 
was  the  first  large  work  of  a  new  out- 
spokenness. Views  that  had  mastered 
me  and  become  my  own  I  was  daring  to 
offer  to  a  larger  company ;  and  such  work 
always  takes  hold  upon  the  future  of  a 
man's  own  mind.  In  my  case  it  was  a 
preparation  for  still  larger  use  of  Chris- 
tian liberty  of  thought  and  speech  in 
handling  the  holy  book.  And  my  com- 
mentary occupied  its  place,  though  a  very 
small  one,  in  the  progress  of  the  general 
thought  about  the  Bible. 

In  the  city  where  I  lived  there  were 
many  warnings  against  crude  though 
reverent  use  of  the  Bible.  I  came  across 
much  influence  of  the  Plymouth  Breth- 
ren, whose  attitude  toward  the  Bible  was 
reverent  almost  to  the  point  of  worship, 
but  who  seemed  to  me  utterly  to  miss  the 
[  140  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

point,  and  to  be  making  of  the  Bible  the 
very  thing  that  God  never  intended  it  to 
be.  Under  this  influence  profoundly 
ignorant  persons  were  exhorted  to  regard 
their  own  understanding  of  the  Bible  as 
unquestionably  the  interpretation  of  the 
Holy  Ghost — usually  with  the  result  of  a 
most  comfortable  superiority  to  all  other 
Christians.  I  met  with  much  interpreta- 
tion that  claimed  to  be  simple  literalism; 
and  I  was  confirmed  in  my  old  conviction 
that  there  is  no  man  who  will  find  more 
fanciful  meanings  than  the  average  liter- 
alist.  I  found  people  who  were  using  the 
Bible  to  identify  the  British  nation  with 
the  lost  ten  tribes,  whereby  they  brought 
over  to  the  existing  British  Empire  all  the 
promises  of  God  to  Israel.  I  knew  many 
who  found  prediction  of  great  things  yet 
to  come  in  what  seemed  to  me  passages 
of  plain  and  simple  meaning.  The  han- 
dling of  unfulfilled  prophecy,  indeed,  was 
a  favorite  employment  with  very  many, 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

who  deemed  this  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant uses  of  the  Bible.  In  a  farmhouse 
I  met  a  godly  soul  who  said  he  had  long 
desired  to  see  me,  because  he  wished  to 
get  my  views  on  the  millennium;  but  I 
fear  he  obtained  less  from  me  than  he 
had  hoped.  I  knew  a  village  where  the 
favorite  topic  of  conversation  when  the 
people  met  was  the  return  of  the  Jews  to 
Palestine.  I  remember  a  man,  a  some- 
what professional  interpreter,  I  think,  in 
his  own  little  circle,  who  asked  me  for  my 
view  of  a  certain  passage  of  Scripture,  of 
which  an  elaborate  explanation  entered 
into  his  framework  of  doctrine.  When 
I  had  given  him  my  understanding  of  it, 
he  looked  up  at  me  with  a  fine  expression 
of  surprise  and  puzzlement  upon  his 
countenance.  "Is  that  it?"  he  said: 
"you'll  spoil  me — it's  so  simple."  There 
was  danger  indeed,  for  elaborateness  was 
necessary  to  satisfy  him.  I  once  said  to 
a  man  that  I  did  not  think  the  Bible  was 
[  142  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

intended  to  provide  us  with  a  map  of  the 
future,  whereupon  he  exclaimed,  "Well! 
then  I  don't  know  what  the  word  revela- 
tion means."  When  I  said,  "Revelation 
of  God,"  the  words  seemed  to  make  no 
impression  on  his  mind.  And  once  I 
went,  a  few  minutes  late,  into  a  prayer- 
meeting  of  another  church  than  my  own, 
which  a  deacon,  in  default  of  a  minister, 
had  been  unexpectedly  called  to  lead. 
When  I  entered  he  was  saying  that  he  had 
had  absolutely  no  opportunity  for  prepa- 
ration, and  could  only  read  a  passage 
from  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  as  he 
had  just  done,  and  offer  as  his  contribu- 
tion to  the  meeting  a  thought  that  had 
been  with  him  much  of  late,  namely,  how 
good  God  is,  to  let  us  Gentiles  in  to  the 
privileges  of  the  Jews.  So  near,  and  no 
nearer,  his  mind  had  come  to  the  religious 
situation  of  the  present  age. 

By  no  means  would  I  represent  that  the 
general    Christian    community    used    the 
[   143   ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

Bible  in  these  strange  and  misleading 
ways,  for  that  would  be  a  slander.  Very 
much  of  devout  and  intelligent  use  of  the 
Scriptures  there  was,  and  I  have  never 
enjoyed  sweeter  fellowship  over  the  Bible 
than  I  enjoyed  with  some  Christians  in 
that  time  and  place.  Nevertheless  there 
was  an  immense  amount  of  such  unfortu- 
nate work,  and  it  all  seemed  to  me  a  sad 
perversion  of  the  sacred  book.  I  plainly 
saw  that  what  was  needed  was  a  different 
conception  of  the  whole  matter  from  be- 
ginning to  end.  No  mending-up  would 
answer:  these  groups  of  earnest  people 
needed  a  revolution  in  their  entire  concep- 
tion of  the  book  that  they  were  both  using 
and  misusing.  They  held  in  their  hands, 
as  they  understood  the  case,  an  infallible 
book,  equally  full  of  revelation  in  all  its 
parts,  and  all  addressed  to  them :  and  this 
book  they  were  uncritically  and  unscien- 
tifically reading,  taking  their  impressions 
of  it  as  the  word  of  God.  When  the  book 
[  144  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

was  thus  viewed  and  used,  the  perversions 
that  I  was  lamenting  quite  naturally  fol- 
lowed. It  was  natural  that  the  recondite 
parts  should  be  the  most  fascinating,  and 
that  the  unintelligible  parts  should  seem 
to  offer  the  best  prospect  of  fresh  revela- 
tion to  the  reader.  It  was  natural,  too,  in 
certain  stages  of  mental  training,  that  the 
reader's  interpretation  should  seem  to  him 
to  partake  of  the  infallibility  of  the  book 
that  he  was  interpreting.  It  was  natural 
that  the  Bible  should  thus  come  to  be 
regarded  as  a  storehouse  of  mysterious 
information,  rather  than  as  a  spiritual 
guide  of  life.  There  was  need  of  a  rev- 
olution: and  I  understood  the  case  well 
enough  to  know  that  the  only  effective 
revolution  must  follow  the  line  in  which 
my  own  mind  was  moving.  The  mis- 
taken methods  must  give  way  to  a  free, 
intelligent,  and  reverent  handling  of  the 
Bible  as  it  really  is.  Of  course  this 
sense  of  need  intensified  my  convic- 
[  145  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

tions.  By  sad  observation  of  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  Bible  in  the  house  of  its 
friends,  I  was  confirmed  in  my  judgment 
as  to  the  treatment  that  Christians  ought 
to  give  it.  This  manifold  discovery  of  the 
tremendous  necessity  urged  me  on  in  my 
course,  and  in  those  years  I  labored  with 
my  best  powers  to  set  a  clear  and  safe 
example  in  rational  use  of  the  holy  book. 

But  I  remember  an  incident  of  this  pe- 
riod that  shows  how  uneven  my  progress 
was.  It  illustrates  also  the  various  lights 
in  which  the  uniqueness  of  the  Bible  may 
be  viewed.  One  Sunday  evening  there 
strolled  in  to  hear  me  a  pair  of  scientists 
with  whom  I  had  a  slight  acquaintance, 
one  of  them  rather  eminent  in  his  genera- 
tion. Afterward  I  wondered  what  they 
thought.  I  do  not  remember  what  my 
text  was,  but  it  was  one  of  the  condensed 
expressions  of  truth  that  abound  in  the 
First  Epistle  of  John.  I  spoke  of  this 
[  146  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

epistle  as  later  in  origin  than  the  book 
that  stands  at  the  close  of  the  Bible,  and 
as  occupying  a  place  at  the  very  end  of  the 
long  course  of  divine  revelation.  I  ap- 
pealed to  its  testimony  as  the  last  and 
highest  word,  the  ripened  fruit  of  God's 
great  revealing  process,  the  very  climax  of 
that  which  has  come  from  him  to  his 
world  of  men.  I  spoke,  in  fact,  as  if 
nothing  had  been  heard  from  God  since 
that  epistle  was  written.  I  did  not  know 
at  the  time  how  far  away  I  was  putting 
God  from  his  world.  But  the  retributive 
power  did  not  overlook  me.  After  a  while 
a  wave  of  remembrance  swept  over  me, 
to  my  humiliation,  and  I  wondered  what 
my  scientific  acquaintances  thought  that 
I,  a  Christian  minister,  believed  about  the 
living  God.  If  they  believed  in  God  at 
all,  as  I  think  they  did,  they  believed  in  a 
God  who  did  not  close  his  work  of  self- 
expression  and  betake  himself  to  silence 
eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  but  who 
[  147  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

"worketh  hitherto,"  a  God  self-uttering 
as  the  light;  and  I  had  been  addressing 
them  as  if  God  had  been  silent  to  men 
through  all  these  ages.  I  wish  I  might 
have  the  opportunity  of  preaching  to  them 
now ;  but  one  of  them  is  gone  to  the  other 
life,  and  the  other  I  shall  never  meet. 

I  remember  a  similar  limitation  upon 
my  thought  at  an  earlier  date.  One  even- 
ing in  my  study  long  ago  I  had  in  my 
hand  a  volume  that  contained  only  two 
or  three  of  the  shorter  Epistles :  probably 
it  was  a  commentary:  and  I  remember 
reflecting  upon  what  it  would  be  if  that 
were  the  entire  Bible,  the  sum  of  revela- 
tion, the  whole  of  what  I  had  or  was  to 
have  from  God.  How  earnestly,  I  thought, 
would  I  search  the  volume  through  and 
through,  eager  to  miss  nothing  of  that 
unique  treasure,  to  which  nothing  would 
ever  be  added!  In  the  Bible,  I  said  to 
myself,  I  had  more  than  in  that  little 
book,  but  with  equal  eagerness  I  ought 
[  148  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

to  search  through  that  unique  possession, 
the  revelation  of  God.  Revelation  I  was 
then  regarding  as  something  begun  and 
ended,  done  and  finished,  written  and 
preserved,  gathered  into  one  place,  differ- 
ent from  anything  else  that  God  has  given 
or  will  give  to  men.  Even  as  late  as  my 
preaching  to  the  scientists  the  influence 
of  that  conception  had  not  passed  away, 
and  later  still  it  was  upon  me,  though  in 
diminished  power.  I  was  right  in  holding 
the  Bible  as  a  unique  book,  uniquely 
precious;  but  when  one  thinks  of  the 
living  God,  near  to  his  human  creatures 
and  the  same  forevermore,  it  cannot  be 
that  he  has  given  men  no  word  of  revela- 
tion from  himself  since  it  was  finished. 
To  know  God  as  Jesus  has  revealed  him 
is  to  know  better  than  that. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  hand  of  Paul  as 
lying  heavy  upon  the  activities  of  Chris- 
tian women.     For  me  the  traditional  def- 
[   149   ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

erence  for  the  Pauline  prohibition  long 
continued;  but  in  the  three  parishes  that 
I  have  spoken  of  there  was  a  curious  suc- 
cession of  attitudes  on  the  subject  of 
women  in  the  church,  which  became  an 
element  in  my  biblical  education. 

In  the  first  parish  the  general  under- 
standing was  that  Paul  forbade  the  women 
to  take  part  in  the  meetings  of  the  church ; 
and  yet  there  was  a  peculiar  line  of  un- 
conscious compromise.  The  women 
seemed  to  have  a  habit  of  confidence  in 
the  pastor  as  interpreter  and  representa- 
tive of  Paul.  If  he  thought  that  Paul's 
prohibition  was  not  binding  upon  them, 
they  would  feel  free  to  speak;  but  if  he 
disapproved  on  Pauline  grounds,  the 
most  of  them  would  not  speak  at  all,  and 
those  who  did  would  have  some  constraint 
in  doing  so,  or  at  least  some  conscious- 
ness. In  this  way  my  opinion  obtained 
an  exaggerated  importance.  I  was  not 
understood  to  be  very  rigid  in  judgment 
[  150  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

against  the  woman's  right,  and  I  was  not, 
for  in  fact  I  wanted  all  the  gifts  in  the 
little  church  to  be  in  use,  and  did  not 
conceal  the  desire — and  a  large  half  of  the 
gifts  were  feminine.  But  at  the  same 
time  Paul  made  me  timid  and  half- 
hearted about  it:  it  became  known  that 
I  understood  him  to  be  against  us,  and 
there  was  constraint  upon  the  women. 
There  were  exceptions,  but  this  was  the 
rule.  Their  activity  did  not  increase  in 
my  day.  I  think  it  rather  diminished. 

The  training  of  my  second  parish  had 
been  rigidly  Pauline  for  generations,  and 
the  atmosphere  was  full  of  the  great 
apostle's  influence.  Rarely  was  a  wom- 
an's voice  heard  in  the  church,  his  judg- 
ment of  silence  being  accepted  as  the 
judgment  of  God.  There  was  some  pri- 
vate dissent,  but  the  public  sentiment,  so 
to  call  it,  was  of  one  effect.  The  women 
of  the  parish  were  nobly  going  out  into 
activities  of  larger  and  more  important 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

significance,  against  which  no  inspired 
voice  had  been  lifted  up ;  in  fact,  a  large 
missionary  organization  of  women  had 
its  origin  there  in  my  time;  but  in  the 
church,  with  rare  exceptions,  even  the 
women  of  the  largest  gifts  were  silent.  In 
this  parish,  however,  the  young  people's 
meeting  came  in  as  an  institution  in  my 
time,  and  in  this  the  girls  began  freely 
and  simply  to  do  what  their  mothers 
had  not  dared,  or  even  desired,  in  the 
face  of  an  inspired  apostle.  Various  ex- 
cuses were  made  for  this,  though  not  by 
the  young  people  themselves.  Some  used 
to  suggest  in  those  days  that  perhaps  this 
was  not  a  meeting  of  the  church,  and  did 
not  come  under  Paul's  prohibition.  Simi- 
lar excuses  were  offered  for  the  larger  use 
of  women  in  public  work  which  was  com- 
ing in.  As  to  my  understanding  of  Paul's 
words  and  intention,  I  had  not  changed; 
but  gradually  there  was  dawning  upon 
me  the  improbability  of  God's  intending 
[  152  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

to  govern  our  movements  in  America 
through  Paul's  directions  to  the  church 
in  Corinth  two  thousand  years  ago.  The 
method  did  not  seem  like  the  reasonable 
God.  At  the  same  time  the  quibbling 
arguments  by  which  I  heard  good  men 
evading  the  prohibition  wearied  me,  and 
were  almost  enough  to  convert  me.  Thus 
the  old  influence  was  slipping  away,  and 
I  did  not  blame  myself. 

In  my  third  parish,  with  its  brisker 
movement  of  life,  all  was  changed.  The 
women  were  taking  part  in  the  meetings 
of  the  church,  as  many  of  them  as  wished 
to  do  so,  with  perfect  freedom.  They 
knew  all  about  the  arguments  for  reading 
Paul's  prohibition  as  local  and  temporary, 
at  least  the  Corinthian  one,  and  so  had  no 
fear  that  they  were  sinning  against  the 
Scriptures.  But  the  real  reason  of  their 
freedom  was  that  in  this  matter  they  were 
not  governed  by  Paul  any  more.  Some 
of  them  had  fine  gifts  for  speaking  and 
[  153  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

something  to  say,  and  would  have  found 
some  way  to  speak  their  minds  if  Paul 
himself  had  been  there  with  all  the  weap- 
ons that  he  was  supposed  to  carry.  They 
were  acting  out  their  real  life  from  the 
heart,  and  the  ancient  hand  was  off  from 
them.  A  few  years  of  such  freedom  lifted 
it  from  me.  I  came  to  the  conviction 
that  the  Christian  life  of  women,  as  of 
men,  must  have  free  course  in  the  activi- 
ties that  are  normal  to  the  age  in  which 
they  live,  and  that  Paul  would  be  the  first 
to  have  it  so.  In  fact,  I  think  he  would 
have  cancelled  the  prohibition,  if  he  had 
foreseen  what  would  come  of  it  through 
long  centuries.  Better  a  little  disorder  in 
Corinth,  he  would  have  said,  than  such 
a  handicap  on  the  sex  of  Phoebe  and 
Priscilla.  In  later  years  I  have  had  no 
trouble  with  these  Corinthian  counsels; 
and  since  I  ceased  to  believe  myself  re- 
quired to  accept  all  arguments  in  the 
Bible  as  valid  because  they  are  there,  I 
[  154  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

have  not  been  troubled  by  the  inconclu- 
sive reasons  for  enforcing  silence  upon 
women  that  are  found  in  the  Pastoral 
Epistles.  Thus  by  a  long  and  slow  evolu- 
tion I  have  come  to  recognize  the  normal 
freedom  of  the  Christian  life.  It  seems  a 
pity  that  I  had  to  unlearn  so  much  upon 
the  way. 

After  this  third  pastorate  I  spent  a  few 
years  as  teacher  of  New  Testament  In- 
terpretation in  a  Theological  Seminary. 
Before  I  accepted  the  position  I  had  a  long 
talk  with  the  president  of  the  institution, 
in  which  I  told  him  all  about  my  point  of 
view  with  regard  to  the  Scriptures,  and 
the  various  departures  from  the  usual 
views  in  theology  to  which  I  had  been  led. 
I  did  not  know  but  he  would  withdraw 
the  invitation,  as  he  had  full  opportunity 
to  do;  but  he  was  not  afraid  of  me,  and 
I  went  to  the  new  work,  which  had  at- 
tracted me  from  the  first,  and  which  I 
[  155  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

found  full  of  interest  and  enjoyment. 
Not  more  truly  than  in  the  pastorate,  but 
in  a  special  sense,  the  Bible  was  now  my 
specific  field. 

I  do  not  think  that  my  work  was  very 
well  planned,  or  that  I  gave  my  students 
as  comprehensive  or  helpful  a  course  of 
instruction  as  they  were  entitled  to  re- 
ceive. I  could  devise  a  much  better 
method  of  proceeding  now.  Neverthe- 
less, however  imperfectly,  I  was  aiming  at 
the  right  point,  and  was  working  with 
enthusiasm.  I  was  trying  to  train  the 
men  in  ability  to  find  out  exactly  what  a 
writer  meant  by  what  he  wrote.  Lexical 
and  grammatical  considerations  came 
first;  then  purpose,  connection  of  thought, 
side-lights,  and,  most  important  of  all, 
sympathetic  entrance  to  the  writer's  point 
of  view,  and  endeavor  to  think  his  thought 
along  with  him,  as  far  as  this  was  possi- 
ble. I  did  not  require  them  to  study  the 
inspiration  of  the  Bible  before  they  studied 
[  156  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

the  Bible.  I  did  not  inquire  beforehand 
whether  the  book  was  inspired  in  some 
particular  manner  or  not  inspired.  I 
simply  opened  it  as  it  was  and  began  to 
read,  seeking  to  interpret,  in  the  sense 
that  I  have  just  presented. 

How  difficult  genuine  interpretation  is, 
if  one  wishes  to  be  exact,  I  was  beginning 
to  know.  The  fact  is  that  absolutely 
perfect  understanding  of  what  a  writer 
meant  by  a  written  page  can  never  be 
obtained.  Even  the  more  external  mat- 
ters cannot  be  managed  to  perfection. 
Perfect  translation  is  impossible.  The 
meaning  of  words  and  the  structure 
of  sentences  can  never  be  so  determined 
that  there  shall  be  no  ambiguity  what- 
ever, and  the  historical  setting  can  never 
be  perfectly  reproduced  in  the  reader's 
mind.  But  even  farther  beyond  reach  is 
the  inner  work  of  interpretation.  One 
man  cannot  perfectly  take  another's  point 
of  view  and  think  his  thought  after  him: 
[  157  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

least  of  all  can  this  be  done  when  the  other 
speaks  out  of  another  age  and  training, 
thinking  his  thought  in  a  world  of  per- 
sonal experience  which  to  the  student 
does  not  exist.  The  thought  of  Paul,  for 
example,  precisely  as  he  thought  it,  no 
modern  mind  has  thought  or  can  ever 
think.  Part  of  the  indispensable  condi- 
tions are  lacking  and  cannot  be  supplied. 
It  is  one  of  the  delusions  of  theologians  to 
think  that  they  have  done  it.  No  one  has 
done  it.  And  if  no  one  has  perfectly 
thought  the  thought  of  Paul,  of  course 
no  one  has  ever  perfectly  accepted  it,  or 
agreed  with  it.  Very  many  have  agreed 
with  Paul  as  they  understood  him,  but 
with  the  very  actual  identical  Paul,  with 
his  very  thought,  no  one  has  ever  per- 
fectly agreed,  for  no  one  has  had  the 
opportunity. 

Was  I  trying  then  to  train  my  students 
to  do  the  impossible  ?    In  a  sense  yes,  in 
another  sense  no.    A  long  way  toward  full 
[    158   ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

success  in  interpretation  we  can  go.  We 
can  understand  Paul,  for  example,  ap- 
proximately, and  in  general  we  can  under- 
stand him  well;  and  we  may  be  sure  that 
with  proper  use  of  means,  we  can  un- 
derstand him  as  well  as  we  need  to.  God 
does  not  require  the  impossible,  and  we 
may  be  sure  that  he  has  not  made  an 
unattainable  understanding  of  the  Bible 
essential  to  our  welfare. 

This  fact  of  the  possibility  of  an  imper- 
fect and  the  impossibility  of  a  perfect  in- 
terpretation carries  with  it  an  important 
lesson  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Bible;  and 
better  progress  would  have  been  made  in 
my  class-room  if  we  could  all  have  done 
justice  to  it.  It  confirms  the  conviction 
that  had  met  me  but  not  wholly  mastered 
me  years  before.  It  means  that  in  the 
Bible  God  has  not  given  us  an  infallible 
standard,  to  all  of  whose  statements  he 
requires  our  assent.  If  he  had  given  us 
[  159  ] 


SIXTY   YEARS   WITH  THE  BIBLE 

such  a  standard,  he  should,  and  would, 
have  insured  to  us  the  power  of  under- 
standing it  perfectly.  There  is  no  good 
answer  to  the  claim  of  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic Church  that  an  infallible  standard  of 
belief  requires  an  infallible  interpreter. 
But  since  for  the  Bible  God  has  not  given 
us  an  infallible  interpreter  and  perfect 
interpretation  is  impossible,  we  may  be 
sure  that  he  has  not  given  us  the  infallible 
book  with  which  we  must  everywhere 
agree,  the  perfect  standard  that  requires 
infallible  interpreting.  The  Bible  is  a 
book  that  we  can  hope  to  understand  as 
well  as  we  need  to  understand  it,  through 
the  best  human  endeavors  with  the  help 
of  God.  In  handling  it  we  are  free  stu- 
dents, not  required  to  agree  to  every 
statement  that  we  find. 

The    method    of    interpretation    into 

which  I  was  trying  to  guide  my  students 

may  be  called  the  historical  method,  or 

there  may  be  other  names  that  describe  it 

[  160  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

truly.  The  point  never  to  be  forgotten  is 
that  the  writer  is  to  be  allowed  to  mean 
exactly  whatever  he  intended  to  mean  by 
his  words,  so  far  as  our  studies  can  find  it 
out.  The  student  is  not  dictating  to  him, 
or  even  guiding  him.  Paul,  if  he  is  the 
author,  provides  the  statement,  and  the 
student  endeavors  to  find  what  he  meant 
by  it.  We  study  our  author  to  discover 
his  meaning.  Perfect  success  we  do  not 
expect,  but  the  only  genuine  success  lies 
before  us  on  this  road.  If  we  dictate  to 
our  writer,  we  are  off  the  track. 

This  is  where  we  got  into  trouble. 
A  good  many  of  my  students  understood 
Paul  already — other  writers,  too,  per- 
haps, but  Paul  the  best.  They  were 
familiar  with  his  theology,  and  knew 
already  what  kind  of  doctrine  they  were 
going  to  find  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ro- 
mans, where  especially  this  trouble  came 
upon  us.  So  sure  were  they  in  advance, 
that  they  were  studying  him  not  so  much 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

to  find  out  what  he  really  did  think,  as  to 
find  the  teaching  that  they  were  already 
attributing  to  him.  Their  tendency  was 
to  find  in  Paul  what  they  had  brought  to 
him,  and  then  think  in  all  sincerity  that 
he  had  given  it  to  them.  This  manner  of 
using  the  Bible  had  been  ingrained  in 
them  by  early  training,  by  years  of  listen- 
ing to  doctrinal  sermons,  by  attention  to 
Articles  of  Faith,  by  discussion  of  doc- 
trine, and  by  practice  of  their  own  in 
preaching  what  they  had  been  taught. 
I  do  not  mean  that  they  were  worse  in  this 
respect  than  other  students,  or  preach- 
ers, or  Christians.  They  were  a  fine  set  of 
men,  some  of  them  of  the  very  best.  I 
only  mean  that  their  theology  was  stand- 
ing between  them  and  a  proper  under- 
standing of  their  Bible — in  which  position 
they  can  claim  large  company. 

Here  they  were  yielding  to  an  insidious 
temptation  well  disguised.     Like  Chris- 
tians generally,  they  believed  that  God 
[  162  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

required  them  to  agree  with  Paul.  They 
supposed  also,  as  Christians  usually  do, 
that  they  did  agree  with  Paul,  and  that 
they  were  certain  to  agree  with  him  still 
further  as  soon  as  they  understood  him 
better.  This  may  be  a  very  convenient 
attitude  if  one  wishes  to  quote  Paul,  but 
it  is  a  very  treacherous  attitude  if  one 
wishes  to  understand  him.  When  a  man 
in  this  frame  of  mind  sits  down  to  inter- 
pret Paul,  it  is  extremely  easy  to  find  Paul 
agreeing  with  him.  In  fact,  it  is  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world.  When  it  is 
assumed  that  the  student,  God's  loyal 
child,  is  in  the  required  attitude  of  sub- 
mission to  God's  written  word  which  he 
is  reading,  it  is  only  too  probable  that  the 
written  word  will  be  read  in  harmony 
with  the  views  of  the  loyal  child.  And  if 
this  process  is  going  on,  it  is  evident  that 
the  real  meaning  is  certainly  not  sought, 
and  is  by  no  means  sure  to  be  found. 
I  criticise  my  students  for  this  the  more 
[  163  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

freely  now,  because  I  myself  was  falling 
under  the  same  condemnation.  I  did 
the  same  myself,  and  the  remembrance 
of  it  is  one  of  the  stinging  and  profitable 
remembrances  of  this  period.  It  is  true 
that  I  did  not  vitally  believe  that  God 
required  me  to  agree  with  Paul.  As  I 
have  said,  the  power  of  that  belief  was 
already  broken.  Yet  I  was  not  free  from 
the  surviving  influence  of  it,  and  prob- 
ably my  environment  was  doing  more 
than  I  was  aware  to  keep  the  influence 
alive.  I  was  still  studying  Paul  with  the 
feeling,  though  without  a  real  belief,  that 
his  arguments  must  be  received  as  sound 
and  his  views  of  truth  in  religion  as 
authoritative.  But  of  course  this  position 
was  unstable.  By  this  time  it  had  come 
to  pass  that  on  some  subjects  of  the  first 
importance,  with  which  Paul  dealt,  my 
mind  was  made  up,  and  was  becoming 
more  intelligently  settled  every  year. 
These  immovable  views  of  mine,  whether 
[  164  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

orthodox  or  not,  were  no  whims  of  my 
own:  I  saw  them  to  be  absolutely  neces- 
sary in  ethics,  and  of  the  very  substance 
of  truth  in  religion,  and  that  was  why 
I  held  them.  Now,  therefore,  when  I 
studied  Paul  with  my  students,  it  was 
very  difficult  for  me  to  think,  or  to  ad- 
mit, that  he  did  not  hold  them  too,  or 
to  find  in  him  any  meaning  inconsistent 
with  them.  My  students,  often  differing 
from  me  in  theology,  were  constantly  at- 
tributing their  own  views  to  Paul.  I  re- 
proved them  for  it,  and  sought  to  teach 
them  a  more  excellent  way;  and  yet  I 
myself  was  really  doing  no  better.  I,  too, 
was  scarce  willing  to  let  him  mean  just 
whatever  he  did  mean,  and  was  inter- 
preting him  more  or  less  according  to  my- 
self. In  this  I  was  sinning  against  my 
own  sound  theory.  I  confess  the  fault. 
If  any  of  my  pupils  of  that  day  read  this 
page,  my  confession  is  for  them.  My 
only  defence  is  that  it  was  my  better  part 
[  165  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

that  was  doing  it.  The  fault  was  not  all 
condemnable.  If  I  must  agree  with  Paul, 
my  better  part  cried  out  that  he  must  be 
on  ground  where  I  could  agree  with  him : 
therefore,  in  defence  of  my  own  moral 
integrity,  I  felt  compelled  to  insist  that 
on  such  ground  he  was.  Since  I  must 
agree  with  the  Bible,  my  soul  clamored 
for  a  Bible  that  I  could  agree  with  with- 
out sacrifice  of  my  best  moral  judgment. 
The  demand  for  conformity  throughout 
has  driven  many  a  mind  to  rejection  of 
the  Bible.  At  this  time  it  was  driving 
mine  to  make  the  Bible  conform. 

Whether  the  students  or  I  or  neither 
of  us  understood  Paul  correctly  is  neither 
here  nor  there  for  the  present  purpose. 
I  am  only  telling  how  we  all  used  the  Bi- 
ble, and  why  we  used  it  so.  More  or 
less,  we  all  read  it  as  agreeing  with  us, 
because  we  supposed  that  we  were  re- 
quired to  agree  with  it.  In  this  we  were 
carrying  our  inherited  idea  of  authority 
[  166  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

to  one  of  its  natural  results.  They  and  I 
were  burdened,  they  in  thought  and  I  still 
in  feeling,  with  a  sense  of  obligation  to  ac- 
cept every  statement  in  the  New  Testament 
as  God's  truth  for  us;  and  this  peculiar 
perversion  came  naturally  in  consequence. 
But  for  me  the  obligation  was  vanish- 
ing as  an  impossible  one.  This  was  its 
last  prominent  appearance.  I  was  learn- 
ing that  in  human  language  there  can  be 
no  book  so  infallible  that  God  can  re- 
quire all  readers  to  accept  all  its  state- 
ments. Such  a  book  would  have  to  be 
perfectly  unambiguous,  so  that  in  accept- 
ing all  its  statements  all  would  be  accept- 
ing the  same  things.  But  no  book  in 
human  language  can  be  perfectly  unam- 
biguous. Experience  in  interpretation  of 
general  literature  demonstrates  that,  and 
how  far  from  being  unambiguous  the 
Bible  is,  the  long  history  of  its  interpre- 
tation shows.  In  such  a  book,  too,  all 
statements  must  needs  be  final;  for  God 
[  167  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

could  not  possibly  require  the  assent  of 
all,  in  successive  ages,  to  provisional 
statements  of  some  past  time,  the  nearest 
true  that  the  times  were  ripe  for,  but  cer- 
tain to  be  superseded,  containing  truth 
partly  wrapped  up  in  temporary  forms. 
But  in  just  such  statements  the  Old  Tes- 
tament abounds,  as  all  readers  know, 
and  so,  in  its  measure,  does  the  New.  It 
is  so  of  necessity,  for  no  book  whose 
statements  were  all  final  could  ever  be 
understood  by  men  or  appeal  to  them. 
And  if  we  ar'e  told  that  our  familiar  Bible 
calls  in  God's  name  for  our  assent  to 
everything  that  it  says,  we  still  must  ask, 
The  Bible  in  what  stage  of  our  under- 
standing it  ?  Our  present  stage  of  under- 
standing is  imperfect,  as  all  past  stages 
have  been.  We  know  what  it  is  to  under- 
stand "as  a  child,"  and  "as  a  man,"  and 
still  imperfectly,  and  we  expect  year  by 
year  to  leave  behind  our  former  under- 
standings as  we  attain  to  better  ones.  So 
[  168  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

surely  does  the  Bible  change  for  us  as  we 
go  on  to  know  it  better,  that  we  can  never 
be  sure  that  we  have  quite  attained  to 
that  sense  which  is  binding  upon  our 
souls.  A  book  thus  unfolding  as  we 
study  it  we  can  use  as  a  divine  gift  and 
a  perpetual  inspiration,  but  not  as  an  in- 
fallible standard.  The  experience  that  I 
have  been  recounting  settled  these  con- 
clusions in  my  mind  for  permanency,  as 
I  think  it  ought. 

During  a  year  or  two  of  this  period,  to 
meet  a  temporary  necessity,  I  gave  in- 
struction also  in  Homiletics.  Throughout 
the  period  too  I  was  preaching  a  good 
deal.  I  preached  in  many  places,  to  con- 
gregations great  and  small,  in  pulpits  of 
various  denominations.  Thus  both  in 
theory  and  in  practice  I  was  still  dealing 
with  the  Bible  in  the  field  with  which 
my  life  had  made  me  familiar.  Here 
there  was  no  change  in  my  attitude.  I 
[  169  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

was  urging  students  to  be  correct  and 
faithful  in  their  handling  of  the  Bible, 
and  to  put  it  to  no  use  inconsistent  with 
its  original  intention.  A  little  earlier  I 
had  delivered  some  lectures  in  which  I 
insisted  that  every  preacher  ought  to 
make  of  himself  an  exegete,  that  is,  a 
man  who  could  read  his  Bible  intelli- 
gently, and  explain  it.  This  claim  was 
not  based  upon  any  special  view  of  in- 
spiration, but  upon  the  sacredness  of 
the  Bible  and  the  seriousness  of  dealing 
with  the  truth  that  it  brings.  On  this 
simple  principle  I  was  now  helping  my 
students  to  use  texts  in  their  proper 
meaning,  and  was  trying  for  myself  to 
do  the  same. 

In  my  own  preaching,  I  was  gaining  in 
freedom  and  variety  in  the  use  of  the 
Scriptures.  I  had  learned  that  preaching 
was  more  versatile  work  than  I  used  to 
think  it  was:  there  were  more  legitimate 
ways  to  preach  than  I  had  once  supposed, 
[  170  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

and  I  was  employing  texts  with  a  wider 
range  of  method.  Once — though  that 
was  later — I  received  a  letter  of  protest 
from  an  old  Scotch  minister  about  a  ser- 
mon that  he  had  heard  me  preach  on 
Christian  liberty.  He  told  me  the  only 
line  of  thought  by  which  that  subject 
could  be  approached  according  to  the 
gospel,  and  practically  gave  me  the  ser- 
mon that  I  ought  to  have  preached.  But 
I  had  learned  that  a  great  many  differ- 
ent sermons  could  be  legitimately  made 
from  one  text,  as  the  long  history  of 
preaching  proves.  In  this  period  the 
manifold  suggestiveness  of  the  Bible  was 
growing  upon  me,  and  thus  its  prac- 
tical richness  and  vast  availability.  It 
is  interesting  to  remember,  by  the  way, 
that  in  preaching  for  half-a-dozen  de- 
nominations it  never  occurred  to  me 
to  vary  or  select  my  message  accord- 
ing to  the  pulpit  to  which  I  was  in- 
vited, nor  did  I  ever  have  reason  to  sup- 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

pose  that  any  one  wished  me  to  do  so. 
I  was  drawing  from  the  Bible  a  gospel 
that  was  as  welcome  in  one  place  as  in 
another. 

After  this  period  of  teaching  I  returned 
to  the  pastorate.  The  place  was  the 
scene  of  my  own  education  in  college  and 
seminary,  and  a  chief  attraction  in  the  in- 
vitation was  that  it  offered  opportunity 
of  preaching  to  a  large  number  of  stu- 
dents, among  whom  were  many  for  the 
ministry.  My  old  teachers  also,  of  whom 
several  remained,  were  among  the  best 
hearers  that  a  man  ever  had.  In  this  last 
of  my  pastorates  my  Bible  was  better  in 
hand  than  ever  before,  and  I  was  using  it 
with  my  best  energies  for  real  benefit  to 
a  most  interesting  congregation.  What 
wonder  that  the  work  was  delightful? 
In  looking  over  the  sermon  record  of  the 
time  I  do  not  find  that  I  was  attempting 
anything  out  of  the  common  course.  I 
[  172  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

was  simply   bringing  my  message  from 
the  Bible  with  gladness. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  higher  criti- 
cism began  to  influence  my  thinking  about 
the  Bible.  Of  course  many  questions  of 
the  higher  criticism  had  long  been  fa- 
miliar, and  entirely  free.  With  such  light 
as  I  had,  I  had  unreservedly  discussed 
questions  of  authorship,  date,  historical 
setting,  and  literary  character.  But  thus 
far  these  questions  had  practically  been 
separate  from  one  another,  pertaining  to 
one  book  at  a  time,  or  to  some  one  group. 
Inquiry  as  to  the  authorship  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  for  example,  was  abso- 
lutely free,  and  decidedly  interesting,  and 
quite  indispensable  to  our  studies,  but  it 
had  not  yet  presented  itself  to  my  mind 
as  a  sample  of  a  method  that  was  to  be 
applied  with  equal  freedom  to  the  entire 
Bible.  Now,  however,  I  became  aware  of 
a  new  situation  of  great  interest  and  im- 
[  173  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

portance.  The  method  that  I  had  used 
as  a  matter  of  course  in  fragmentary  fash- 
ion was  now  organized  into  a  system,  and 
was  used  in  examination  of  all  that  the 
Bible  contained.  It  now  presented  itself 
as  the  coming  method,  destined  to  be 
characteristic  of  a  period  in  the  history  of 
biblical  science.  Its  advent  marked  a 
new  era.  I  had  been  brought  up  in  a 
period  of  exegesis,  in  which  attention  was 
directed  to  the  contents  of  the  sacred 
books,  sentence  by  sentence  and  word  by 
word;  a  period  therefore  of  textual  criti- 
cism also,  verifying  the  very  words  as  far 
as  possible.  But  now  was  ushered  in  a 
period  in  which  attention  was  to  be  turned 
less  upon  the  contents  of  the  books  for  in- 
terpretation, and  more  upon  the  books 
themselves,  their  origin,  their  general 
character,  and  their  external  history.  On 
general  principles  it  might  seem  that  this 
class  of  questions  would  be  considered 
first,  when  once  the  scientific  study  of  the 
[  174  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

Bible  had  begun.  It  would  seem  right  to 
search  out  the  quality  and  history  of  the 
books  before  sitting  down  to  read  them 
word  by  word.  But  the  esteem  in  which 
the  Bible  was  held  determined  the  order 
of  the  studies,  and  it  was  quite  inevitable 
that  the  first  scientific  work  upon  it  should 
be  devoted  to  ascertaining  what  the  Bible 
says.  But  it  was  equally  inevitable  that 
after  a  generation  of  students  had  bent 
itself  to  this  task,  another  generation 
should  set  itself  to  inquire  with  equal 
diligence  what  the  Bible  is.  This  was  the 
inquiry  of  the  higher  criticism. 

In  the  late  Eighties  I  read  the  debate 
between  President  Harper  and  Professor 
Green  on  this  later  method  of  study. 
The  discussion  did  not  cover  the  whole 
ground,  but  it  contained  samples  that 
illustrated  the  method  and  indicated  the 
nature  of  the  outcome.  Some  men  of 
modern  thinking  were  inclined  to  speak 
words  of  quietness,  to  the  effect  that  the 
[  175  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

new  style  of  work  would  make  but  little 
difference.  I  could  not  agree  with  them. 
I  well  remember  how  the  conviction  was 
borne  in  upon  me  that  the  higher  criticism 
was  a  thoroughly  revolutionary  thing.  I 
plainly  saw  that  the  Bible  would  not  come 
out  of  this  crucible  as  it  went  in.  From 
the  generally  accepted  views  there  would 
certainly  be  great  changes.  No  one  could 
tell  beforehand  what  they  would  be,  but 
it  was  not  to  be  supposed  for  a  moment 
that  the  popular  conceptions  of  the  Bible, 
inherited  from  the  Jews  and  from  uncrit- 
ical Christian  ages,  would  all  stand  the 
test  of  critical  investigation.  Many  of 
them  would  have  to  yield  to  new  con- 
ceptions. The  coming  of  great  changes 
was  as  certain  as  the  coming  of  the  future, 
if  this  work  went  on. 

What  should  I  think  of  all  this?  and 
what  should  I  do  ?     There  was  no  room 
for  doubt.    The  inquiry  that  was  under- 
taken by  the  higher  criticism  was  per- 
[    176   ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

fectly  legitimate,  and  I  had  no  right  to 
resist  it  or  to  wish  it  away.  It  was  as  legit- 
imate, and  as  important  in  its  place,  as 
laboratory  work  in  chemistry  or  investiga- 
tion of  the  causes  of  disease.  Moreover, 
though  I  should  never  be  an  expert  in  the 
practice  of  criticism,  I  was  pledged  to 
approval  of  the  enterprise  by  all  my  his- 
tory as  a  student  of  the  Bible.  I  had 
sought  to  be  a  sound  interpreter  of  the 
sacred  writings;  but  sound  interpretation 
is  quite  impossible  without  just  such 
examination  of  time,  place,  history,  and 
literary  character  as  the  higher  criticism 
proposes.  This  I  had  always  assumed, 
for  long  before  I  ever  heard  the  name  of 
it  I  had  undertaken  elementary  work  of 
higher  criticism,  as  something  indispen- 
sable to  the  understanding  of  a  book. 
However  imperfectly  I  had  lived  up  to  it, 
my  rule  had  always  been  to  let  the  Bible 
mean  whatever  it  does  mean.  But  if  I 

am  to  let  it  mean  whatever  it  does  mean, 
[    177   ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

I  must  consent  to  let  it  be  whatever  it  is. 
I  must  not  dictate  its  character,  any  more 
than  its  utterance :  I  must  leave  these  to  be 
determined  for  me  by  the  facts,  and  must 
do  my  utmost  to  ascertain  the  facts.  If 
they  prove  to  be  other  than  I  thought,  it  is 
I,  not  they,  that  must  change,  and  to  make 
the  needful  change  must  be  my  first  desire. 
And  if  by  tradition  or  by  reverence  I  were 
tempted  to  exempt  the  Bible  from  critical 
judgment  as  to  its  origins  and  character, 
my  experience  in  interpretation  should 
recall  me  to  a  braver  and  more  reason- 
able mind.  I  had  not  found  it  to  be 
an  infallible  book  in  its  counsel  to  a 
reader,  for  it  contained  old  forms  of 
truth  that  were  long  ago  superseded  by 
truth  in  higher  forms,  and  the  Bible  itself 
contains  the  record  of  that  superseding. 
It  was  not  inerrant,  for  I  had  found  its 
writers  often  irreconcilable  in  details,  and 
sometimes  demonstrably  in  error.  The 
Bible  was  commended  to  me  by  its  spirit- 
[  178  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

ual  character  as  exceeding  precious,  but 
it  was  not  marked  by  qualities  that  should 
set  it  apart  from  examination — if  indeed 
any  qualities  could  do  that.  Least  of  all 
did  I  find  the  Bible  claiming  any  such 
exemption.  It  claimed  neither  inerrancy 
nor  perfection  of  any  kind.  It  was  sim- 
ply itself,  and  asked  for  no  privileges. 

Thus  by  all  my  studies  I  was  pledged 
to  this  new  form  of  study  which  they 
called  the  higher  criticism.  How  it  has 
been  misunderstood!  Well  I  remember 
the  solemnity  with  which  a  minister  said 
in  my  hearing,  "The  higher  criticism  is 
not  higher,  morally."  No  one  ever  said 
it  was.  But  it  is  legitimate  morally,  and 
necessary  to  the  understanding  of  the 
Bible.  And  so  it  has  been  my  duty  to 
accept  the  general  conclusions  of  the 
higher  criticism.  I  must  be  patient  in 
doing  so,  and  must  allow  time  for  a  good 
degree  of  certainty  to  be  reached,  for  I 
do  not  wish  to  accept  new  views  prema- 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

turely.  Yet  even  on  this  point  I  must  not 
be  too  cautious.  It  is  just  as  undesirable 
to  retain  an  erroneous  idea  as  it  is  to  ac- 
cept one.  It  is  a  popular  charge  against 
the  higher  criticism  that  its  conclusions 
keep  changing;  there  is  no  finality;  if  we 
adopt  something  now  we  may  have  to 
change  again  by  and  by.  This  aspect  of 
the  matter  is  often  alleged  as  a  sufficient 
reason  for  doing  nothing  at  all  about  it. 
"When  the  higher  critics  have  got  their 
final  conclusions,"  it  is  said,  "we  will  be- 
gin to  think  of  dropping  our  old  ideas." 
But  students  do  not  talk  in  that  way 
about  chemistry,  or  physics,  or  astron- 
omy, or  any  other  science,  or  even  about 
the  geography  of  the  North  Pole.  All 
genuine  study  assumes  that  knowledge  is 
a  growing  thing,  and  as  changes  have 
come  already,  so  they  must  come  again. 
No  one  waits  for  the  end  of  a  movement 
in  thought  to  be  reached,  before  begin- 
ning to  go  along  with  it.  All  students  of 
[  180  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

science  are  glad  to  let  old  ideas  give  place 
to  new,  with  the  perfect  understanding 
that  final  conclusions  may  still  be  far 
away.  All  sciences,  indeed,  are  revolu- 
tionized as  often  as  new  facts  can  revo- 
lutionize them.  In  like  manner,  if  my 
old  notions  of  the  Bible  are  untenable, 
I  must  leave  them  behind  and  join  those 
who  are  seeking  for  true  ideas  to  take  their 
place.  In  the  search  I  may  accept  con- 
clusions and  be  obliged  to  give  them  up 
again  and  receive  others  in  their  place; 
but  that  is  what  all  students  of  reality  are 
doing  all  the  time,  and  if  I  do  it  I  shall 
only  be  exercising  my  duty  and  privilege 
as  a  seeker  after  truth.  Nevertheless, 
although  I  still  retain  the  prospect  of 
changes,  the  fact  is  that  the  work  of  higher 
criticism  has  already  led  to  many  conclu- 
sions that  are  not  likely  to  be  reversed. 
If  they  are  to  be  altered  hereafter,  they 
will  be  altered  by  pursuance  of  the  line 
of  change,  not  by  reversion  to  what  has 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

been  left  behind.  Certain  general  large 
results,  and  many  more  special  ones, 
may  fairly  be  said  to  have  been  estab- 
lished to  remain.  At  the  present  day, 
therefore,  it  is  both  my  duty  and  my 
privilege  to  accept  such  conclusions.  I 
shall  be  wilfully  mistaken  if  I  refuse. 
And  if  I  accept  them  I  am  not  to  accept 
them  on  the  sly  and  shamefacedly,  but 
freely  and  frankly,  like  an  honest  man; 
and  when  they  have  been  accepted  I  am 
not  to  lay  them  on  the  shelf,  as  if  by  mere 
mental  assent  I  had  fulfilled  my  duty  to 
them.  I  must  live  up  to  my  acceptance. 
I  must  take  them  into  daily  use  in  my 
own  understanding  and  presentation  of 
the  Bible.  I  must  manfully  move  with 
the  movement  of  truth.  I  have  sympathy 
with  the  man  who  said,  "If  it  is  heresy  to 
think  ahead  of  one's  time,  is  it  not  heresy 
to  think  behind  one's  time?" 

Thus  the  case  opened  to  me  when  the 
claims  of  the  higher  criticism  were  first 
[    182   ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

presented.  I  have  never  seen  it  in  any 
other  light,  and  for  many  years  I  have 
not  talked  as  if  Moses  wrote  the  Penta- 
teuch, or  the  book  of  Isaiah  had  but  one 
author,  or  Job  or  Jonah  were  historical. 
On  these  points  and  various  others  I  am 
sure:  naturally  there  are  some  on  which 
I  am  waiting  for  certainty,  and  hold  only 
provisional  conclusions.  At  any  given 
moment  doubtless  my  opinions  upon  such 
matters  of  fact  could  be  convicted  of  in- 
completeness and  inconsistency,  for  I 
have  learned  more  in  some  fields  than  in 
others.  But  I  have  found  comfort  in  the 
statement  that  there  is  no  moral  obliquity 
in  giving  simultaneous  shelter  to  propo- 
sitions that  may  afterward  prove  incom- 
patible. I  must  make  progress  as  I  can. 
But  I  believe  in  the  process,  and  in  the 
progress,  and  I  am  living  in  daily  use  of 
great  benefit  from  these  studies.  Late  in 
the  Eighties  I  read  the  statement  that  the 
higher  criticism  had  already  relieved  us  of 
[  183  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

more  than  half  of  the  moral  difficulties  of 
the  Old  Testament.  I  thought  it  true, 
and  have  never  doubted  it.  Indeed,  more 
is  true.  The  higher  criticism  removes  the 
cause  of  the  deepest  of  those  moral  diffi- 
culties, for  it  shows  us  that  Christians 
need  not  attribute  to  the  God  of  Christ 
all  the  acts  and  passions  that  Israelites 
attributed  to  the  God  of  Israel,  or  approve 
the  moral  judgments  that  were  recorded 
in  days  of  inferior  moral  light.  In  the 
history,  I  have  found  the  new  light  mak- 
ing much  intelligible  that  was  once  con- 
fused, and  much  credible  that  was  once 
hard  to  believe.  Thus  the  modern  method 
has  come  to  me  not  mainly  as  a  perplex- 
ing thing,  though  of  course  it  has  brought 
perplexity  now  and  then,  but  far  more  as 
a  means  of  light  and  help. 

Particularly    in    one    respect    has    the 
higher  criticism  deserved  well  of  me.    By 
the  revolution  that  it  has  wrought  in  my 
[   184   ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

conception  of  the  Old  Testament  it  has 
largely  unified  and  Christianized  my  Bible. 
It  was  a  day  of  mingled  good  and  ill 
when  Christianity  adopted  the  Old  Tes- 
tament as  its  original  sacred  Scripture. 
Near  the  beginning  of  these  reminiscences 
I  spoke  of  my  mother  as  unconsciously  in 
bondage  because  of  the  blending  of  Ju- 
daism with  the  gospel  in  the  Bible  that 
guided  her  religious  experience.  We  were 
all  subject  to  the  same  divided  influence, 
part  Christian  and  part  non-Christian, 
proceeding  from  our  sacred  book,  and 
we  all  suffered  in  consequence.  I  was 
brought  up  to  suppose  that  the  funda- 
mental and  character-giving  element  in 
the  Old  Testament  was  the  law,  by  which 
was  meant  the  Judaic  law  in  its  complete- 
ness— not  merely  the  instruction  and  re- 
quirement of  God  for  the  soul,  the  simpler 
and  more  spiritual  torah,  but  the  great 
complex  institution  whose  means  of  grace 
was  altar-sacrifice  and  whose  principle 
[  185  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

was  legalism,  with  its  law  of  merit  in  the 
sight  of  God.  The  entire  body  of  the  law, 
I  was  taught,  was  proclaimed  at  Sinai  by 
the  same  God  who  was  revealed  in  Christ, 
and  stood  through  the  Old  Testament 
period  as  expressive  of  his  mind  and  will 
for  Israel,  and  in  fact  for  all  men  apart 
from  Christ.  The  Levitical  law  repre- 
sented God  as  truly  as  the  gospel,  and 
represented  his  ancient  way  of  saving 
men.  The  principle  of  legalism  was  of 
God,  and  bore  divine  honors  in  the  Old 
Testament.  I  supposed  that  in  the  days 
of  the  old  covenant  men  were  accepted  by 
God  on  the  ground  of  legal  righteousness, 
and  that  only  in  the  gospel  did  the  prin- 
ciple of  grace  come  in — and  that  even  then 
grace  had  to  make  terms  with  law  right- 
eousness before  it  could  have  its  way. 
Both  methods,  the  legal  and  the  gracious, 
represented  God;  which  meant  that  God 
was  a  being  who  could  be  fairly  repre- 
sented by  either. 

[  186  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

It  is  true  that  this  belief,  which  was  the 
outcome  of  my  early  training,  had  its 
difficulties.  Paul  seemed  to  think  quite 
differently  from  this  at  times,  condemn- 
ing the  central  principle  of  the  law  as  none 
of  God's  own.  The  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews, with  all  its  reverence  for  the  an- 
cient institution,  declared  it  worthless  for 
the  highest  spiritual  purposes.  Words  of 
Jesus  sounded  out  like  thunder  against 
the  whole  legalistic  principle  and  method. 
The  ceremonial  and  sacrificial  system 
seemed  to  have  nothing  in  common  with 
his  view  of  religion.  Thus  I  was  drawn 
into  a  very  hard  dilemma.  If  my  hered- 
itary view  was  right,  one  and  the  same 
God  and  Father  had  taken  two  opposite 
attitudes  in  two  successive  periods,  first 
proclaiming  and  insisting  upon  a  princi- 
ple of  acceptance  with  himself  which  he 
afterward  repudiated  and  condemned. 
There  were  minor  difficulties  besides, 
like  the  impossibility  of  finding  the  com- 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

plete  institution  of  the  law  existing  through 
the  Old  Testament  period,  and  the  fact 
that  the  prophets  uttered  their  clearest 
note  when  they  were  repudiating  the 
principle  of  legalism;  but  the  chief  diffi- 
culty was  the  impossibility  of  attributing 
legalism  and  Jesus  to  the  same  God. 
My  early  reverence  for  the  Bible  led  me 
to  suppose  it  must  be  all  right,  but  as  I 
grew  older  the  case  grew  harder.  Within 
the  Bible  God  seemed  to  be  contradicting 
himself. 

With  what  delight  and  satisfaction  then 
did  I  welcome  the  message  of  the  higher 
criticism!  I  was  now  led  to  see  that  the 
central  thing  in  the  religion  of  the  Old 
Testament  was  not  the  law  but  the  proph- 
ets and  their  teaching;  and  the  prophets 
held  forth  essentially  the  same  religion  of 
spiritual  inwardness  and  sincerity  that 
Jesus  preached — save  as  some  of  the 
later  among  them  partook  somewhat  of 
the  legal  spirit.  Not  legalism  but  godli- 
[  188  ] 


THE  EIGHTIES 

ness  was  the  religion  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, as  of  the  New.  The  law  was 
ancient  in  its  rudiments,  and  the  divine 
instruction  came  gradually,  but  the  de- 
veloped law  with  its  cramping  legalism, 
instead  of  being  most  ancient,  came  late 
into  the  field  of  life.  Instead  of  being  the 
ground  upon  which  the  prophets  stood 
when  they  delivered  their  burning  mes- 
sages of  righteousness,  the  legalistic  sys- 
tem grew  up  after  the  greatest  of  the 
prophets  had  spoken  their  word  and 
passed  away.  Instead  of  being  the  voice 
of  God  in  old  time,  legalism  came  in 
because  the  genuine  voice  of  God,  uttered 
in  the  prophets,  had  not  mastered  the 
mind  of  Israel.  The  teaching  that  rep- 
resented God  in  old  time  was  the  spiritual 
teaching  that  most  nearly  resembled  that 
of  Jesus  Christ.  In  this  light  I  saw  that 
God  had  not  held  two  contradictory 
attitudes  in  the  two  Testaments,  or  taken 
back  his  own  teaching,  or  trampled  upon 
[  189  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

his  own  earlier  methods.  Throughout 
the  Bible  religion  was  one,  and  God  was 
one.  His  method  of  salvation  was  one  in 
all  ages,  true  to  his  own  ethical  nature. 
So  then  there  was  no  need  that,  a  learner 
from  the  Bible  be  in  bondage  to  legalistic 
notions  of  the  way  to  be  acceptable  to 
God,  and  suffer  the  accompanying  temp- 
tations to  self-righteousness  or  despair. 
No  longer  could  the  Bible  seem  to  require 
a  Christian  still  to  be  half  a  Jew  of  the 
old  legalistic  dispensation.  For  me  the 
Bible  was  redeemed  from  this  old  divi- 
sion, and  brought  into  clear  Christian 
unity. 

At  the  same  time  the  Old  Testament 
law  itself  was  redeemed  from  its  evil  name 
by  the  help  of  the  higher  criticism.  By  re- 
vealing the  strata  in  which  that  law  was 
formed,  the  higher  criticism  has  made  it 
more  intelligible,  and  shown  us  why  it 
was  so  useful  to  Israel  and  so  delightful 
to  men  of  God  in  the  Psalms.  When  the 
[  190  ] 


THE   EIGHTIES 

legalistic  element  is  mainly  taken  out  of 
the  earlier  law  and  shown  to  have  come 
in  at  the  end  of  the  period,  the  earlier  law 
itself  is  left  more  spiritual,  and  more  like 
the  prophets  and  the  gospel.  It  appears 
as  a  righteous  and  kindly  social  order 
according  to  the  standards  of  the  age, 
and  as  a  religious  order  in  which  the  men 
of  the  period  could  find  uplifting  and  sat- 
isfaction for  their  minds.  It  told  of  God 
in  his  goodness,  and  was  adapted  to 
nourish  the  best  spiritual  life  that  was 
possible  in  that  time.  It  was  far  more 
worthy  of  God  and  helpful  to  men  than 
that  elaborate  system  could  have  been 
which  I  had  supposed  to  have  been  re- 
vealed in  full  by  God  through  Moses. 
So  while  I  could  see  that  Jesus  was  right 
in  his  estimate  of  the  legalism  of  his  day, 
I  could  enter  with  equal  fellowship  into 
the  feeling  that  Psalmists  entertained 
toward  the  law  of  the  Lord  as  it  stood  in 
their  time,  and  could  understand  the 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

deep   spiritual   delight  with   which   they 
regarded  it. 

I  commend  this  experience  of  mine  to 
the  many  Christians  who  have  been  led 
to  suppose  that  the  higher  criticism  can 
be  nothing  else  than  a  weapon  of  unbe- 
lief. For  me  it  has  made  the  Bible  to  be 
far  more  consistently  a  Christian  book 
than  it  had  ever  been  before,  and  has 
placed  it  in  my  hands  more  ready  for  all 
Christian  use.  In  my  progress  toward  the 
restful  attitude  concerning  the  Bible  which 
I  now  hold,  I  thankfully  recognize  the 
higher  criticism  as  one  of  the  most  valu- 
able of  helps. 


[  192  ] 


VI 
THE  NINETIES 

IN  the  first  week  of  the  Nineties  my  old 
teacher  in  Systematic  Theology,  who  had 
been  inspiring  students  through  all  the 
intervening  years,  very  suddenly  died, 
and  after  a  few  days  I  found  myself  seated 
in  his  chair,  engaged  to  conduct  through 
the  remainder  of  the  seminary  year  the 
class  that  he  had  left.  My  favorite  work 
had  always  been  biblical,  and  I  had  never 
looked  forward  to  teaching  theology,  or 
desired  it,  or  dreamed  that  any  one  would 
ever  wish  me  to  do  it,  or  imagined  that  I 
could  ever  assent  if  I  were  asked.  Noth- 
ing could  have  lain  more  completely  be- 
yond my  field  of  contemplation.  But  now, 
within  two  weeks  of  a  time  when  such 
[  193  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

views  were  undisturbed,  I  was  actually 
doing  the  work,  and  a  few  months  later 
the  temporary  engagement  was  exchanged 
for  a  permanent  one,  and  the  work  that 
was  neither  expected  nor  desired  was  be- 
fore me  as  the  work  of  the  remainder  of 
my  life.  No  man  was  ever  more  sur- 
prised to  find  himself  where  he  was,  or 
felt  himself  less  responsible  for  being 
there.  But  there  I  was,  and  my  experi- 
ence with  the  Bible  in  the  Nineties  was 
that  of  a  teacher  of  theology. 

The  teacher  had  to  be  constructor  also. 
It  chanced  that  my  predecessor's  text- 
book, privately  printed,  went  out  of  print 
just  when  he  went  out  of  life.  He  did  not 
leave  copies  enough  to  supply  a  single 
class.  There  was  no  text-book  at  hand 
that  I  could  successfully  use,  and  there 
was  no  way  but  to  make  my  own.  Theol- 
ogy was  coming  into  a  new  period;  all 
the  older  text-books  were  framed  upon  a 
method  of  using  the  Bible  that  I  could 
[  194  1 


THE  NINETIES 

not  employ.  To  make  my  own  book 
was  what  I  desired  from  the  first,  but 
the  conditions  compelled  me  to  begin  at 
once.  So  in  the  summer  of  that  first 
year  I  set  myself  to  the  laying-out  of  my 
system,  and  formed  the  outline  of  my  the- 
ology as  it  has  ever  since  remained.  In  the 
next  three  years  I  rewrote  my  treatise  three 
times,  enlarging  it  each  time.  In  the  fourth 
year  I  rewrote  it  again  and  printed  it.  A 
few  years  later  I  revised  and  enlarged  it 
once  more,  and  it  was  published. 

In  those  years  of  constructive  labor  it 
was  of  course  necessary  that  I  should  act 
upon  some  principle  as  to  the  relation  of 
the  Bible  to  a  system  of  theology.  But  the 
question  of  method  here  did  not  present 
itself  as  a  present  question,  or  as  a  prob- 
lem that  had  then  to  be  solved.  My  life 
had  given  me  my  method  with  the  Bible, 
and  I  found  myself  readily  putting  it  to 
this  new  application.  If  I  had  been 
[  195  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

waiting  for  a  method,  or  had  had  still  to 
decide  on  what  principle  I  should  use  my 
Bible  in  constructing  theology,  I  should  not 
have  dared  to  undertake  my  new  work, 
nor  should  I  have  been  qualified  for  it. 

It  was  my  task  to  give  form  to  the  the- 
ology of  the  Christian  religion:  therefore 
I  could  not  do  otherwise  than  regard  the 
Bible  as  my  chief  source.  Other  sources 
I  must  use,  and  in  all  theology  there  is 
truth  for  which  no  written  source  can  ex- 
ist; but  for  that  which  is  distinctive  in 
Christianity,  and  for  the  Christian  aspects 
of  universal  truth  in  religion,  the  Christian 
Scriptures  provide  material  that  can  be 
obtained  nowhere  else.  Of  the  Christian 
Scriptures  therefore  I  must  make  primary 
use ;  and  from  their  primacy  in  Christian 
theology  they  can  never  be  deposed. 

Formerly  it  was  assumed  that  if  the 

Bible  was  to  be  used  as  a  primary  source 

for  theology,  that  course  must  be  justified 

by  presenting  proof  that  the  Bible  was  di- 

[  196  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

vinely  inspired.  Conceptions  of  divine 
authority  were  very  external,  and  very 
external  were  the  modes  of  evidencing 
himself  to  men  that  were  attributed  to 
God:  very  great  and  exclusive  also  were 
the  claims  that  were  made  for  the  Bible. 
In  such  conditions  it  is  not  surprising  that 
a  strong  theory  of  inspiration  was  felt  to 
be  indispensable.  If  I  had  been  claiming 
that  the  Bible  was  the  sole  repository  of 
God's  communications  to  men,  and  that 
it  was  inerrant  in  all  its  statements  and 
infallible  in  all  its  contents,  and  that  I 
had  no  right  to  pass  judgment  upon  what 
it  offered  me,  but  must  absolutely  accept 
it  all  as  the  word  of  God,  I  should  have 
needed  to  support  my  claims  by  positive 
proof  that  these  extraordinary  qualities 
had  been  imparted  to  the  book,  and  a 
clear  account  of  the  manner  in  which  it 
was  done.  A  theory  of  inspiration  is  a  very 
difficult  thing  to  make,  it  is  true,  and  none 
has  ever  been  made  that  corresponded  to 
[  197  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

the  facts;  but  it  is  no  wonder  that  up  to 
recent  times  the  effort  to  construct  such 
theories  has  been  continued  as  something 
indispensable  to  theology.  In  my  case, 
however,  there  was  no  need.  I  belong  to 
a  generation  that  has  outlived  the  neces- 
sity of  such  theories.  If  one  observes  it, 
no  new  theories  of  inspiration  have  been 
formed  lately:  the  theories  that  stand  in 
theological  books  are  old  ones,  discredited 
by  later  knowledge  of  the  Bible,  but  not 
yet  abandoned,  because  their  superflu- 
ousness  has  not  yet  been  perceived.  But 
they  are  destined  to  be  left  behind.  We 
are  able  now  to  take  the  Bible  as  it  is,  and 
listen  to  its  testimony,  without  first  prov- 
ing by  a  doctrine  of  inspiration  that  it 
must  be  listened  to.  At  present  a  more 
interior  and  spiritual  idea  of  the  evidence 
of  the  present  God  may  be  applied.  If 
God  is  in  a  book  he  will  be  found :  we  do 
not  have  to  justify  our  sense  of  his  pres- 
ence there  by  building  up  a  theory  to 


THE  NINETIES 

show  how  he  got  there.     God  shines  by 
his  own  light. 

My  own  experience  here  was  very  sim- 
ple. I  found  that  the  Bible  set  before  me 
the  historical  and  spiritual  figure  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  showed  me  the  principle  on 
which  he  taught  us  to  live  the  true  life  of 
men:  it  showed  me  the  Saviour,  and  the 
salvation.  In  this  twofold  vision  I  had  the 
key  to  the  Christian  theology;  or,  to  use 
a  better  simile,  I  had  the  light  which  it 
was  my  privilege  to  hold  up  for  illumi- 
nation of  the  field.  This  light  which  I  as 
theologian  was  to  use  I  found  in  my  Bible 
just  as  it  lay  in  my  hands,  without  refer- 
ence to  any  theory  as  to  how  the  divine 
Spirit  influenced  the  men  who  wrote  it. 
I  could  read  the  book,  and  get  my  infor- 
mation. How  the  book  was  written  is  a 
matter  of  indifference  to  me:  what  it  con- 
tains is  the  point.  Under  what  special 
kind  of  divine  influence  it  was  written  I 
can  never  discover,  and  my  theories  can 
[  199  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

never  be  anything  but  guesses,  as  all  such 
theories  have  been;  but  what  it  contains 
I  can  read  and  put  to  use.  Viewed  in  this 
light,  the  Bible  did  not  need  any  theory 
of  inspiration  to  justify  its  admission  as 
a  main  source  of  theology.  I  am  sure 
that  I  was  right  in  thinking  myself  enti- 
tled to  take  it  for  just  what  it  was  and 
learn  its  lessons;  and  I  judge  that  recent 
theological  thought  is  right  in  allowing 
theories  of  inspiration  to  lapse.  The  fut- 
ure will  need  no  such  theory,  and  will 
use  the  Bible  more  intelligently  with  none. 
Theories  of  inspiration  have  always  been 
dictating  the  contents  of  the  Bible,  telling 
us  what  we  must  find.  When  theology  has 
used  the  Bible  for  a  generation  or  two  with- 
out them,  our  successors  will  wonder  how 
we  ever  thought  that  its  testimony  could 
be  ascertained  when  they  were  in  mind. 

Another  change  in  method  was  inevita- 
ble.    In  constructing  a  system  of  theology 
[  200  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

I  did  not  find  myself  proceeding  upon  the 
ancient  and  familiar  proof -text  method. 
The  proof-text  idea  has  appeared  in  va- 
rious forms.  Texts,  or  quotations  from 
Scripture,  have  been  largely  relied  upon 
for  support  of  doctrinal  statements,  and 
have  been  regarded  as  sufficient  support 
for  such  statements.  If  the  Bible  can  be 
quoted  for  a  doctrine,  that  doctrine  has 
been  accepted  as  true.  It  has  usually 
been  held  that  a  theologian  must  work  into 
his  statement  of  a  doctrine  the  testimony 
of  all  the  texts  in  the  Bible  that  bear  upon 
the  subject  in  question,  and  must  con- 
struct a  statement  that  will  include  the 
teaching  of  them  all.  If  this  cannot  be 
quite  accomplished,  still  it  is  the  ideal,  to 
be  reached  as  nearly  as  possible.  Some- 
times, again,  a  doctrine  has  been  made  to 
take  its  form  from  some  classical  biblical 
passage,  felt  to  be  so  important  that  it 
must  be  made  determinative.  But  I  did 
not  find  myself  following  the  proof-text 
[  201  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

method  in  any  of  these  forms.  A  critic 
once  remarked  concerning  my  published 
result,  that  although  the  pages  were  freely 
marked  with  Scripture  references — "spat- 
tered," I  think  he  said — the  work  was  not 
really  an  expression  of  the  results  of  exe- 
gesis. He  was  wrong  in  the  deeper  sense, 
but  superficially  he  was  right.  I  was  not 
simply  gathering  in  the  meaning  of  pas- 
sages, and  fortifying  my  positions  by  the 
citation  of  texts.  I  was  not  simply  re- 
porting what  the  Bible  said  upon  the 
Christian  doctrines.  I  was  working  under 
a  different  conception  of  the  relation  of 
the  Bible  to  theology. 

My  life  had  brought  me  entirely  over  to 
the  position  of  my  early  teacher  in  the- 
ology, now  my  predecessor,  from  whose 
method  I  had  so  conscientiously  dis- 
sented in  my  youth.  I  had  almost  de- 
manded, as  I  acknowledged  to  him  long 
afterward,  that  his  theology  be  dictated 
to  him  by  the  Bible.  But  by  this  time  I 
[  202  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

had  learned  that  instead  of  being  dictat- 
ed by  the  Bible,  a  man's  theology  should 
be  inspired  in  him  by  the  Bible — or,  more 
truly,  inspired  in  him  through  the  Bible 
by  the  Spirit  that  inspired  the  Bible. 
Theology  should  be  a  result  of  exegesis, 
but  a  second  fruit,  not  a  first.  Between 
exegesis  and  theology  there  are  inter- 
mediate processes,  not  only  legitimate  but 
necessary. 

Toward  this  view  of  a  theologian's  task 
it  is  easy  to  see  that  my  whole  life  had 
been  leading  me.  A  more  genuine  move- 
ment toward  an  end  it  would  be  difficult 
to  find.  In  my  exegetical  years  I  had 
been  gathering  material  from  the  Bible. 
In  preaching  I  had  been  making  it  my 
own.  In  the  doctrinal  studies  to  which 
I  had  been  impelled  I  had  been  thinking 
for  myself  and  organizing  what  God  had 
given  me.  In  this  earlier  work  I  had 
made  certain  my  later  method.  When  I 
[  203  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

was  searching  out  the  doctrine  of  the 
atonement,  I  had  explored  the  Scriptures 
as  thoroughly  and  honestly  as  I  was  able, 
and  had  also  called  to  my  aid  universal 
ethical  principles.  Thus  I  had  endeav- 
ored to  interpret  God's  saving  work  in  the 
light  of  his  character  as  it  was  revealed  by 
Jesus  Christ.  I  had  allowed  the  divine 
character  and  the  great  moral  principles 
that  are  involved  in  it  to  condemn  and 
expel  whatever  doctrine  could  not  abide 
in  their  company,  and  had  invited  them 
to  inspire  the  doctrine  that  I  should  hold. 
I  had  thus  sought  to  clear  the  ground  of 
all  that  must  pass  away  in  the  divine 
presence,  and  to  build  up  a  positive  doc- 
trine that  could  bear  the  light  of  God. 
In  all  this  I  had  simply  been  following  the 
Christian  revelation  out  to  its  doctrinal 
development,  and  had  been  using  only 
such  means  as  were  in  keeping  with  its 
character.  I  had  been  introducing  proc- 
esses between  exegesis  and  doctrine,  or 
[  204  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

between  the  Bible  and  theology,  but  the 
processes  were  legitimate.  By  such  work 
I  had  come  into  possession  of  a  method 
that  I  could  not  abandon  when  I  came  to 
the  construction  of  theology.  When  my 
results  were  reached  of  course  they  were 
illustrated  and  confirmed  abundantly  by 
reference  to  the  Bible;  but  the  proof-text 
method  was  a  thing  of  the  past.  I  be- 
lieved, however,  and  still  believe  that  I 
was  using  the  right  method  of  drawing 
doctrine  from  the  Christian  revelation, 
and  of  forming  theology.  Not  that  the 
method  was  an  invention  of  mine.  Even 
the  stoutest  reliers  upon  proof-texts  had 
always  used  it  more  or  less.  But  I  was 
coming  out  into  the  liberty  of  it,  and  using 
it  as  a  free  child  of  God. 

After  all,  this  ought  to  have  been  the 
only  way.  The  Bible  is  not  a  book  of 
proofs  for  theology.  Not  for  such  a  pur- 
pose was  it  made,  and  with  reference  to 
the  truths  that  theology  seeks  to  express, 
[  205  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

its  real  utterances  can  properly  find  their 
way  into  theology  only  through  such  a 
process  as  I  have  described.  These  utter- 
ances fall  naturally  into  three  groups: 
and  these  in  three  very  different  ways  re- 
quire to  be  brought  into  theology  as  it 
were  in  their  distilled  essence.  First  we 
have  the  religious  utterances  of  the  Old 
Testament,  various  in  quality,  some  in 
deep  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  Jesus, 
and  some  belonging  to  earlier  and  inferior 
stages  of  religious  life.  This  group  of 
utterances,  pre-Christian,  must,  of  course, 
be  analyzed  and  classified  before  they  are 
used,  in  order  that  only  those  of  them 
that  are  in  the  spirit  of  Jesus  may  become 
contributory  to  our  scheme  of  Christian 
thought.  The  character  of  the  God  of 
Jesus  must  make  its  discriminations  and 
selections  in  the  material  that  comes  from 
before  Jesus'  time. 

Next,  ushering  in  the  new  age,  we  have 
the  utterances  of  Jesus  himself.     These 
[  206  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

are  words  of  religion  and  of  life.  They 
were  not  spoken  in  order  to  provide  ma- 
terial for  the  construction  of  a  system  of 
theology:  they  were  spoken  for  the  re- 
vealing of  God,  for  the  enlightening  of 
men,  for  the  illuminating  of  religion,  for 
the  establishing  of  eternal  life.  If  we  use 
them  directly  as  timbers  for  the  frame 
of  a  system,  we  put  first  a  use  of  them 
that  was  intended  to  be  second.  They 
enter  into  theology  with  their  sure  and 
glorious  testimony,  but  they  must  enter 
through  the  medium  of  religion  and  ex- 
perience. It  is  thus  that  they  are  power- 
ful. Above  all  others,  these  testimonies 
to  divine  reality  must  pass  into  theology 
through  life. 

And  last  in  the  New  Testament  we  have 
the  interpretations  of  the  Christian  gospel 
that  were  made  by  Jesus'  followers.  It 
has  been  the  common  belief  that  in  these 
we  have  the  end  of  theology,  the  conclu- 
sive utterances,  and  that  it  is  the  destiny 
[  207  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

of  all  theological  thought,  whether  inter- 
pretative or  speculative,  to  return  to  iden- 
tity, with  the  judgments  of  the  apostles, 
and  especially  of  Paul,  the  best  known 
among  them.  Historically,  indeed,  these 
early  statements  were  the  beginning  of 
theology,  not  its  end;  for  theology  has 
always  been  discussing  them  and  using 
them,  but  has  never  returned  to  identity 
with  them.  They  have  constituted  its 
warp,  perhaps,  but  never  its  warp  and 
woof.  It  has  always  expounded  them, 
judged  them,  accepted  them  with  inevita- 
ble modifications  of  understanding,  com- 
bined them  in  various  proportions,  and 
wrought  them  into  systems.  Such  vari- 
ous use  of  them  is  right.  It  was  never 
possible  that  the  beginning  of  theology 
should  be  its  end,  the  first  interpretation 
the  final.  That  would  accord  neither  with 
the  nature  of  man  nor  with  the  nature  of 
truth  as  man  has  to  do  with  it.  These 
earliest  interpretations  of  Christ  and  the 
[  208  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

gospel  require  to  be  analyzed  before  they 
bring  their  contribution  to  our  doctrine. 
These,  too,  are  religious  rather  than  doc- 
trinal in  their  intention;  but  besides  this 
they  were  made  in  conditions  that  were 
more  or  less  provisional  and  temporary. 
In  those  conditions  final  interpretations 
were  impossible.  Understandings  of  the 
gospel  that  were  made,  for  example,  in 
the  light  of  still  existing  Judaism,  and 
were  colored  by  actual  experience  of  Ju- 
daistic  life,  were  by  very  necessity  pro- 
visional and  transitory.  They  were  rich 
in  truth,  indeed:  not  only  did  they  con- 
tain the  central  truth  of  Christ,  but  they 
contained  important  truth  in  their  very 
peculiarities.  But  the  element  of  finality 
in  the  form  of  doctrine  they  could  not 
possibly  possess.  In  due  time  doctrine 
must  pass  through  them  into  other  forms, 
and  through  these  again  into  others  still. 
And  so  when,  in  my  study  of  the  atone- 
ment, I  used  the  Pauline  conceotions,  not 
[  209  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

in  their  first  form  but  in  what  I  have 
called  their  distilled  essence,  I  was  doing 
what  their  character  requires,  and  what 
Paul  would  wish  me  to  do.  When  in  my 
larger  constructive  enterprise  I  used  the 
Scriptures  generally  on  the  same  principle, 
I  was  doing  what  the  nature  of  the  Bible 

requires  to  be  done. 
/ 

How  does  this  principle  work  out  in 
practice  ?  What  result  does  it  yield  ? 
According  to  the  principle  that  I  ac- 
cepted and  acted  upon,  a  system  of 
Christian  theology  has  God  for  its  centre, 
the  spirit  of  Jesus  for  its  organizing  prin- 
ciple, and  congenial  truth  from  within  the 
Bible  and  from  without  for  its  material. 
As  for  the  Bible,  I  am  not  bound  to  work 
all  its  statements  into  my  system:  nay, 
I  am  bound  not  to  work  them  all  in,  for 
some  of  them  are  not  congenial  to  the 
spirit  of  Jesus  which  dominates  Chris- 
tian theology,  and  some  express  truth 
[  210  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

in  forms  that  cannot  be  of  perma- 
nent validity.  The  glory  of  the  Bible  for 
my  purpose  as  theologian  is  that  it 
gives  me  Christ  whose  revealing  shows 
me  God  the  centre  of  the  system,  that 
it  instructs  me  in  that  spirit  of  Christ 
which  is  the  organizing  principle,  and 
that  it  provides  me  with  abundant  con- 
genial material  for  the  building  up  of 
doctrine.  One  who  uses  the  Bible  thus 
is  using  it  in  accordance  with  its  char- 
acter. He  may  fail  in  forming  his  sys- 
tem through  insufficiency  of  his  own, 
but  he  will  not  fail  because  his  principle 
is  wrong. 

So  much  for  the  manner  of  using  the 
Bible  that  I  was  constrained  to  follow  in 
giving  form  to  the  theology  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith.  In  other  writings,  and  in  the 
preaching  of  later  years,  I  have  followed 
the  inspiration  of  the  same  principle, 
never  doubting  that  it  was  right.  It  is  a 
more  exacting  method  than  the  one  that 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

it  has  supplanted,  but  to  that  a  seeker  for 
truth  has  no  right  to  object. 

In  teaching  theology  I  have  very  nat- 
urally had  a  variety  of  experiences  with 
students  respecting  the  Bible  and  the  man- 
ner in  which  we  ought  to  use  it.  My  pupils 
are  my  joy  and  crown,  and  they  know 
it;  and  I  shall  neither  disparage  nor 
offend  them  if  I  freely  chronicle  what 
I  have  learned  from  them  about  the  harm 
of  holding  wrong  notions  about  the  Bible. 

Generally  speaking,  and  with  occa- 
sional exceptions,  I  have  found  students 
more  and  more  open-minded  as  the  years 
of  my  teaching  went  by.  But  they  have 
usually  needed  much  reconstruction  of 
their  ideas  of  the  Bible — a  fact  of  which 
some  of  them  have  been  aware.  I  have 
said  to  them  year  after  year  that  for  stu- 
dents of  Christian  theology  a  fundamental 
question  is,  What  is  the  Bible,  and  how 
does  it  teach  us  truth  ?  For  want  of  a  clear 
[  212  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

answer  to  this  question  theology  has  often 
groped  its  way  through  open  country, 
and  for  want  of  a  tenable  and  convincing 
answer  it  has  been  weakened  on  every 
side.  If  there  are  conflicting  answers  to 
this  question  in  the  minds  of  disputants 
on  theology,  discussion  is  ambiguous  and 
inconclusive,  and  therefore  endless.  I 
have  often  been  hampered  in  teaching  by 
the  fact  that  my  students  and  I  were  car- 
rying in  our  minds  different  answers  to 
this  fundamental  question.  As  long  as 
that  was  the  case,  it  was  inevitable  that 
we  should  be  working  more  or  less  at 
cross-purposes.  Students  for  the  ministry, 
however,  as  I  have  known  them,  are  usu- 
ally very  slow  to  accept  any  considerable 
alteration  of  their  general  conception  of 
the  Bible :  many  of  them  resist  the  change 
most  earnestly.  The  fact  that  this  is  per- 
fectly intelligible  does  not  render  it  less 
unfortunate.  Many  of  them  come  to  us 
a  generation  or  two  behind  the  times  in 
[  213  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

knowledge  of  what  the  Bible  is,  and  hold 
beliefs  about  it  that  stand  in  the  way  of 
their  obtaining  better  knowledge.  It  is 
pathetic  when  a  young  man's  belief  about 
the  word  of  God  prevents  his  coming  to 
the  best  belief  in  God. 

I  think  theological  seminaries  would 
do  well  to  make  some  special  provision  for 
this  need.  The  traditional  course  begins 
with  exegesis  and  kindred  studies.  By 
starting  with  exegesis  the  seminary  as- 
sumes that  the  student  knows  what  kind 
of  book  it  is  that  he  sits  down  to  interpret ; 
but  usually  the  fact  is  that  the  student 
does  not  know.  He  brings  inherited  and 
inbred  opinions,  which  he  supposes  to  be 
the  only  opinions  that  can  possibly  be 
correct,  but  it  is  rarely  the  case  that  in  his 
mind  they  rest  upon  sound  knowledge. 
Usually  they  have  been  taught  to  him, 
and  are  held  in  deference  to  orthodox 
belief.  I  think  it  would  be  a  good  thing 
for  the  seminary,  before  exegetical  work 
[  214  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

is  so  much  as  mentioned,  to  offer  a  good 
stiff  course  on  the  question,  "What  is  the 
Bible  ?"  The  course  should  be  thorough- 
ly organized,  and  should  require  hard 
work,  and  the  teacher  should  be  a  scholar 
who  is  incapable  of  evasions  and  double 
meanings.  Then  perhaps  the  student 
might  become  prepared  to  do  at  the  best 
advantage  the  work  that  lies  before  him. 
It  is  a  frequent  temptation  for  a  theo- 
logical seminary  to  endeavor  to  keep  a 
student  along  in  the  ideas  that  he  brought 
with  him  when  he  entered,  alarming  him 
as  little  as  possible,  or  as  gradually.  But 
it  may  be  the  duty  of  a  theological  semi- 
nary as  early  as  possible  to  shock  him  out 
of  some  of  the  ideas  that  he  brought  with 
him,  in  order  that  he  may  be  ready  for 
straightforward  and  intelligent  work.  One 
of  my  colleagues,  in  the  exegetical  depart- 
ment, has  been  wont  to  congratulate  me 
that  I  did  not  have  to  take  the  students  as 
he  did,  fresh  from  the  outside  world,  but 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

only  after  he  had  had  opportunity  to  rid 
them  of  some  of  the  ideas  with  which  they 
came.  I  could  congratulate  him  in  turn 
if,  before  he  led  them  to  grapple  with  in- 
terpreting the  New  Testament,  they  had 
had  a  good  straight  opportunity  to  learn 
under  a  good  teacher  what  the  New  Tes- 
tament is,  and  what  is  the  Bible  of  which 
it  is  a  part. 

I  have  been  accustomed  to  find  stu- 
dents most  reverent  toward  the  Bible,  and 
devotedly  attached  to  it.  Many  I  have 
found  largely  familiar  with  its  contents. 
It  has  formed  a  most  significant  element 
in  their  religious  life,  and  they  have  gladly 
looked  forward  to  having  it  for  their  life- 
long companion.  It  has  been  a  perpetual 
support  to  their  faith ;  and  yet  the  manner 
of  their  belief  in  it  has  often  appeared  to 
be  an  impediment  in  the  way  of  a  better 
faith.  I  have  often  counselled  students  to 
transfer  to  God  himself  the  faith  that  they 
[  216  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

were  building  on  the  Bible,  but  usually 
the  counsel  has  not  been  very  readily 
understood.  The  impression  seemed  to 
be  that  I  was  merely  giving  two  names  to 
the  same  thing,  and  that  to  believe  the 
Bible  as  a  witness  to  God  was  the  same 
as  to  believe  in  God.  The  difference  be- 
tween believing  in  God  as  a  living  reality 
and  giving  credit  to  authoritative  state-  ^ 
ments  about  him  did  not  seem  to  be  under- 
stood. Many  think  there  is  no  way  of  at- 
taining to  vital  faith  in  a  living  God,  except 
by  assenting  to  the  statements  of  an  infalli- 
ble book  about  him :  it  is  assumed,  indeed, 
that  to  assent  to  the  statements  is  to  have 
the  faith.  I  have  often  tried  to  make 
plain  the  difference  between  these  two 
belie vings,  but  not  always  with  success. 
The  statements  of  the  infallible  Bible 
stood  as  a  ready,  convenient,  and  available 
foundation  for  religious  confidence,  and 
I  have  had  great  difficulty  in  convincing 
students  that  there  could  be  a  better  or 
[  217  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

securer  one.  It  is  true  indeed  that  through 
the  help  of  the  Bible  they  had  come  to 
believe  in  God.  But  by  their  own  ac- 
knowledgment they  were  holding  their 
belief  in  God  on  the  strength  of  their  con- 
fidence in  the  Bible;  and  often  they  have 
based  their  belief  in  God  so  exclusively 
upon  the  Bible  as  to  be  seriously  afraid 
to  admit  any  change  in  their  conception 
of  the  Bible,  lest  they  should  lose  their 
belief  in  God.  Many  a  time  have  I  found 
students  in  this  frame  of  mind ;  and  they 
have  many  companions.  There  are  many 
who  hold  their  faith  in  God  by  so  feeble 
a  tenure  as  to  fear  that  they  may  lose  it  if 
they  accept  the  results  of  the  higher  criti- 
cism. This  is  one  of  the  main  causes  of 
the  popular  outcry  against  the  higher 
criticism :  people  do  not  see  how  to  keep 
their  faith  in  God  except  by  holding 
fast  to  their  old  ideas  of  the  Bible. 
For  my  part,  I  am  most  thankful  for 
so  precious  a  means  of  rising  to  faith 
[  218  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

in  God  as  the  Bible  has  proved  itself  to 
be.  But  I  think  it  must  be  God's  will  that 
the  time  shall  come  when  the  means  gives 
way  to  the  end;  when  confidence  in  the 
living  God  himself  stands  independent  of 
any  views  that  we  may  hold  of  the  book 
in  which  we  have  read  most  about  him. 
All  Christians  need  a  faith  in  God  that 
no  changes  in  knowledge  of  the  Bible 
can  disturb,  and  I  am  sure  that  God 
intends  such  a  faith  for  us  all.  There- 
fore it  is  a  sorrow  to  find  a  certain  type  of 
belief  in  the  Bible  standing  in  the  way  of 
such  faith  in  God  himself. 

I  have  often  found  students  very  tena- 
cious in  holding  that  view  of  the  Bible 
which  I  unwittingly  presented  to  my 
scientific  guests  on  a  Sunday  evening— 
namely,  that  it  contains  all  that  God 
has  ever  spoken  to  men,  and  nothing 
has  been  heard  from  him  since  it  was 
completed.  Of  course  it  is  understood 
[  219  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

that  he  has  ever  since  been  unfolding  or 
developing  the  truth  that  the  Bible  con- 
tains, and  presenting  it  in  new  forms  to 
successive  generations;  but  I  have  often 
found  it  held  as  a  primary  assumption  of 
Christianity  that  no  new  truth  has  been 
revealed  by  God  since  the  closing  of  the 
Canon. 

Men  in  my  class-room  have  been  ready 
to  fight  for  this  as  if  it  were  indispensable 
to  religion.  "No  new  truth  since  the 
Bible"  has  seemed  to  them  a  necessary 
proposition:  Christianity  would  be  dead 
without  it.  Any  real  reason  why  God 
should  not  be  manifesting  truth  to  his 
creatures  in  one  age  as  well  as  in  another, 
and  truth  that  he  had  not  shown  to  them 
before,  has  not  been  alleged:  it  was  only 
that  such  action  of  God  was  ruled  out  by 
the  theory  that  was  held  concerning  the 
Bible.  It  was  assumed  that  the  Bible  was 
final,  and  that  was  reason  enough:  no 
new  truth  can  have  been  revealed  since. 
[  220  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

And  thus  by  their  theory  about  the  Bible 
Christians  were  prevented  from  rising  to 
belief  in  the  living  God,  always  the  same, 
whose  nature  it  is  to  be  shining  as  the 
light,  always  in  spiritual  communication 
with  his  creatures,  administering  the  life 
of  his  world  as  a  self -revealing  God.  I  am 
not  careful,  however,  to  observe  a  sharp 
distinction  between  old  truth  and  new,  for 
I  am  not  sure  that  such  a  distinction  can  be 
maintained.  Exactly  when  in  the  history 
of  mankind  a  truth  is  new  and  when  it  is 
old,  I  suspect  that  no  one  can  tell;  nor 
can  any  one  tell  at  what  precise  moment 
a  truth  is  revealed  from  God.  Revelation 
is  not  a  lightning-flash :  it  is  rather  like  the 
dawn,  brightening  into  the  full  day.  As 
for  God,  I  am  sure  that  he  is  free  to  utter 
his  truth  when  and  where  he  will,  and  I 
will  hold  no  theory  that  would  limit  him. 
Here  is  one  of  the  points  at  which  there 
evidently  is  enlargement  and  uplifting  in 
the  transfer  of  faith  from  the  Bible  to 
[  221  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

God.  When  he  himself  is  the  ground  of 
our  confidence  in  him,  then  the  Bible 
comes  to  its  place  as  our  helper  and  brings 
us  the  service  for  which  it  was  given. 
But  if  we  use  it  instead  of  God  as  the 
foundation  for  our  confidence,  it  even 
obscures  God  for  us. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  view  of  the 
Bible  that  I  have  described  should  mani- 
fest itself  in  a  fixed  prejudice  against 
changes  in  theological  thought.  I  do  not 
say  progress  in  theological  thought,  for 
that  word  might  seem  to  beg  an  impor- 
tant question.  Nor  am  I  complaining 
because  changes  that  I  have  myself  pro- 
posed have  found  this  prejudice  awaiting 
them.  The  point  is  more  general.  Stu- 
dents have  frequently  stood  in  firm  re- 
sistance to  any  important  modification  of 
their  views.  I  am  not  without  experience 
of  that  feeling  in  the  earlier  part  of  my 
own  life:  I  well  know  what  it  is,  though 
[  222  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

I  never  knew  it  in  its  full  strength.  The 
philosophy  is  simple,  and  the  immova- 
bleness  comes  naturally  about.  Belief 
in  the  finality  of  the  Bible  is  apt  to  be 
accompanied  by  an  equal  belief  in  the 
correctness  of  accepted  interpretations. 
If  a  man  says  to  his  pupil  or  parishioner, 
"I  tell  you  by  authority  of  God  that 
you  must  believe  this,"  it  is  necessary 
that  he  should  add,  "And  this  is  what  it 
means":  for  in  all  words  there  is  ambigu- 
ity. When  he  has  declared  the  meaning, 
the  meaning  goes  into  the  words  for  the 
hearer,  and  partakes  of  their  authority, 
and  the  requirement  comes  to  be,  "You 
must  believe  these  words  in  this  sense." 
But  a  teacher  or  preacher  will  not  usually 
make  a  personal  interpretation,  and  put 
into  the  authoritative  words  a  meaning 
of  his  own.  Rather  will  he  take  up  the  in- 
terpretation that  has  been  accepted,  either 
by  Christians  generally  or  by  the  group  of 
Christians  with  whose  testimony  he  is 
[  223  ] 


SIXTY   YEARS   WITH  THE  BIBLE 

most  familiar.  Thus  the  orthodox  inter- 
pretation, approved  by  the  many  and  the 
great,  fastens  its  grasp  upon  the  infallible 
words  and  makes  them  its  own;  and  to 
the  humble  and  reverent  individual  it 
comes  to  pass  that  this  is  the  meaning  to 
which  the  divine  authority  is  attached. 
Then  departure  from  this,  and  reinter- 
pretation  in  new  light,  becomes  departure 
from  the  mind  and  will  of  God.  The 
field  is  not  free  to  reinterpretation  which 
may  result  in  change,  for  sanctity  guards 
the  old,  a  flaming  sword  turning  every 
way  that  keeps  the  gate.  Thus  there 
stands  a  predetermined  opposition  to 
change,  assuming  that  the  weight  of 
God's  will  is  against  it.  How  often,  both 
within  my  class-room  and  without,  have 
I  found  proposals  of  fresh  thought  upon 
divine  themes  encountering  this  solid  wall ! 
The  meaning  of  the  law  is  the  law:  the 
accepted  meaning  of  the  Bible  is  the 
Bible,  which  stands  supported  by  the 
[  224  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

authority  of  God.  And  this  I  have  met 
with  in  a  day  when  in  every  other  field 
of  knowledge  change  of  thought  was 
welcomed  as  the  very  substance  of 
things  hoped  for. 

Against  this  view  of  the  method  of  di- 
vine authority  I  have  always  maintained 
with  my  students,  as  I  have  with  my  owrn 
soul,  that  we  are  as  free  to  search  out  the 
truth  of  God  as  ever  an  apostle  was,  and 
that  we  may  be  as  truly  under  the  leading 
of  God  in  doing  so  as  the  apostles  were. 
God  has  never  limited  freedom  of  in- 
quiry by  any  commandment  of  his  own, 
nor  has  he  authorized  his  children  to 
limit  one  another's  freedom  by  their  estab- 
lished versions  of  his  truth.  Orthodoxy 
is  a  human  institution,  not  a  divine,  and 
God  has  never  set  it  up  as  a  barrier  in 
the  way  of  thought  concerning  divine 
realities.  I  have  sought  to  lead  my  stu- 
dents into  the  sense  and  exercise  of  this 
normal  freedom,  and  not  without  suc- 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

cess.  And  my  experience  in  working  with 
students  has  confirmed  me,  I  scarcely 
need  say,  in  my  confidence  in  this  gen- 
uine Christian  liberty.  Their  frequent 
lack  of  it  and  my  own  continual  benefit 
from  it  have  kept  it  ever  in  mind  as  a  goal 
of  endeavor  and  a  theme  of  gratitude. 

I  have  scarcely  mentioned  the  move- 
ment of  my  mind  with  reference  to  the 
moral  difficulties  of  the  Bible.  I  have 
said  that  in  my  childhood  all  was  calm 
in  this  oft-troubled  quarter,  the  disturb- 
ing questions  having  not  yet  arisen. 
Somewhat  later  detached  problems,  such 
as  that  of  the  destruction  of  the  Canaan- 
ites  and  the  hardening  of  Pharaoh's  heart, 
began  to  be  troublesome.  How  labori- 
ously these  have  been  argued,  for  vin- 
dication of  God!  Gradually  I  became 
aware  of  the  unchristlike  character  of  the 
imprecatory  Psalms.  In  the  Sixties  I 
heard  an  essay  on  the  imprecatory  Psalms 
[  226  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

by  an  elderly  minister,  in  which  he  began 
with  a  fair  statement  of  the  difficulty  that 
a  Christian  reader  finds  in  them.  But 
after  offering  various  tentative  explana- 
tions of  the  difficulty,  he  declared  them 
all  needless,  and  staked  the  whole  matter 
on  inspiration.  However  we  may  feel 
about  it,  we  may  be  sure  that  it  is  all 
right.  His  words  were,  "In  any  case, 
God  takes  all  the  responsibility":  he  has 
inspired  these  psalms  with  all  their  im- 
precations, and  we  need  not  suspect  that 
there  is  anything  wrong  about  them,  for 
there  cannot  be,  with  him  as  their  in- 
spirer.  Thought  and  language  are  his 
own.  His  solution  did  not  help  me,  but 
rather  shocked  me;  but  after  .all  it  was 
only  a  bald  statement  of  the  doctrine  of 
inspiration  that  was  commonly  held,  in 
its  application  to  these  perplexing  pas- 
sages. I  remember  hearing  another  jus- 
tification a  few  years  later,  from  another 
minister,  to  the  effect  that  we  can  all 
[  227  1 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

understand  these  ancient  psalms  of  im- 
precation: the  best  of  us  have  felt  just 
as  the  psalmist  did.  The  amount  of  it 
was  that  even  a  good  man  will  sometimes 
want  to  use  bad  words,  and  his  passion 
may  not  be  altogether  an  evil  one.  Nei- 
ther did  this  help  me  much,  nor  did  it 
seem  a  worthy  explanation,  if  any  direct 
inspiration  of  God  was  supposed  to  be 
involved.  The  dark  mystery  of  such 
sentiments  in  a  book  attributed  to  God 
remained. 

Some  time  in  the  early  Seventies  I  was 
invited  back  to  my  first  parish  to  deliver 
an  address  on  the  Morality  of  the  Bi- 
ble, in  a  course  that  one  of  my  successors 
had  projected.  I  delivered  my  lecture, 
but  I  do  not  think  it  was  worth  anything. 
I  had  thought  somewhat  on  the  subject, 
but  had  not  yet  taken  any  large  grasp  of 
it,  and  had  no  true  idea  of  the  way  in 
which  it  ought  to  be  treated.  I  supposed 
that  the  Bible,  as  the  word  of  God,  would 
[  228  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

contain  the  divine  teaching  as  to  the  mor- 
als of  human  life :  therefore  I  expected  to 
find  God's  system  of  morality  presented 
rudimentally  in  the  Old  Testament,  and 
perfectly  in  the  New.  This  of  course  I 
could  find,  as  others  did,  by  judicious  se- 
lection of  materials — just  as  I  afterward 
found  men  finding  their  premillennial  and 
postmillennial  theories  of  the  advent. 
This  I  did,  as  well  as  I  could,  endeavor- 
ing to  state  and  illustrate  the  ruling  prin- 
ciples of  the  divine  morality.  But  I  be- 
came aware  how  much  I  had  to  omit  in 
order  to  make  the  Bible  yield  this  result: 
how  much  there  was  there  that  did  not 
fall  into  the  scheme  of  the  Christian  eth- 
ics. Hard  places  had  to  be  skipped. 
The  biblical  material  as  a  whole  did  not 
yield  itself  to  that  kind  of  treatment: 
the  method  was  wrong,  and  my  lecture 
probably  did  not  help  the  situation  for 
any  one.  The  pastor,  however,  an  older 
man,  told  me  that  he  thought  I  had  the 
[  229  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

right  idea,  and  did  not  see  how  much 
more  could  be  done  than  I  had  included 
in  my  endeavor.  Yet  his  tone  indicated 
that  he  did  not  regard  the  effort  as  very 
satisfactory,  and  wished  he  could  see 
a  better  way  through  the  question.  He 
was  no  farther  along  than  I. 

As  long  as  I  believed  that  I  was  bound 
to  approve  all  that  any  part  of  the  Bible 
said  about  God  and  his  judgments  as  to 
good  and  evil,  it  was  natural  that  I  should 
look  away  from  the  moral  difficulties,  or 
should  minimize  them  as  much  as  pos- 
sible. If  moral  contradictions  were  at- 
tributed to  God,  it  was  natural  that  I 
should  be  blind  to  them.  The  skipping 
was  a  privilege,  and  seemingly  a  duty. 
Here  my  conception  of  inspiration  tended 
directly  to  blunt  my  moral  sense,  by  pre- 
venting a  straightforward  ethical  judg- 
ment upon  matters  that  were  laid  before 
me.  In  my  youth  I  was  taught  that  con- 
cerning matters  of  record  in  the  Bible, 
[  230  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

especially  in  their  bearing  upon  the  char- 
acter of  God,  I  had  no  right  to  the  free  ex- 
ercise of  my  moral  judgment.  I  must  not 
admit  that  God  had  done  wrong  or  ap- 
proved of  evil :  hence  I  must  deny  that  any 
act  attributed  to  him  in  the  inspired  Bible 
was  wrong,  or  that  anything  was  evil  that 
he  was  recorded  to  have  approved.  In 
my  childhood,  how  well  I  remember  the 
shocked  and  grieved  expression  with 
which  any  sharp  inquisitiveness  about 
such  acts  was  met!  "God  did  it,  for  the 
Bible  says  so,  and  what  God  did  was 
right:  of  course  it  was  right — you  must 
not  question  it":  such  was  the  repressive 
reverence  that  such  inquiries  encountered. 
In  later  years  how  often  have  I  heard 
good  men  arguing  with  unconscious  soph- 
istry that  deeds  that  bore  every  mark 
of  being  wrong  were  right  because  God 
was  recorded  to  have  done  them  or  ap- 
proved them!  It  was  a  necessity.  If  we 
were  to  believe  in  the  good  God  and  the 
[  231  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

infallibility  of  the  Old  Testament,  we  had 
to  ignore  the  moral  contradictions,  or 
else  to  argue  them  out  of  the  way. 

In  this  manner  it  came  to  pass  that  I 
did  not  fully  know  how  serious  were  the 
moral  difficulties  of  the  Bible  from  the 
old  point  of  view,  until  after  they  had 
ceased  to  trouble  me.  I  have  already 
said  that  my  altered  conception,  formed 
under  various  influences  and  rendered 
consistent  and  secure  by  the  higher  criti- 
cism, has  released  me  from  all  obligation 
to  attribute  to  God  all  the  traits  and 
judgments  that  are  attributed  to  him 
within  the  Bible.  In  much  that  I  used  to 
suppose  that  I  must  receive  as  true  of 
God,  I  now  read  the  record  and  effect  of 
what  people  thought  of  God — a  difference 
that  goes  to  the  very  bottom  of  the  mat- 
ter. When  I  was  thus  set  free  from  ob- 
ligation to  approve  all  that  I  found,!  could 
see  how  much  there  was  that  I  could  not 
approve,  as  well  as  how  high  and  glorious 
[  232  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

was  the  morality  of  Christ.  I  now  see 
clearly,  and  gratefully,  how  broad  is  the 
contrast  between  the  Christian  thought 
of  God  and  much  that  stands  in  the  Old 
Testament:  how  broad  is  the  contrast, 
too,  between  the  best  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  much  that  stands  beside  it 
there.  This  contrast  it  is  my  duty  to  note, 
and  my  privilege  to  keep  in  memory.  In 
dealing  with  the  Bible  I  am  as  free  to  call 
black  black  as  I  am  to  call  white  white, 
and  I  am  delivered  from  the  too-familiar 
temptation  to  call  black  white  for  the  glory 
of  God.  Thus  difficulty  with  the  Bible  on 
account  of  these  moral  contrasts  is  entirely 
gone,  and  can  never  return  to  trouble  me. 
In  the  class-room  it  has  not  come  in  my 
way  to  discuss  the  moral  difficulties  of  the 
Bible  very  largely,  and  except  in  a  few 
instances  I  do  not  know  how  seriously 
students  are  troubled  by  them.  But  I  im- 
agine that  students,  like  Christians  gener- 
ally, are  receiving  a  good  deal  of  benefit 
[  233  1 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

from  views  like  mine,  whether  they  accept 
them  or  not.  Such  views,  widely  diffused, 
make  an  atmosphere  of  relief  that  all  are 
breathing.  In  the  presence  of  this  helpful 
influence,  the  unresponsive  many  have 
great  reason  to  be  thankful  for  what  the 
responsive  few  are  doing  for  them.  The 
old  pressure  of  infallibility  is  not  so  heavy 
as  it  once  was.  Readers  do  not  take  so 
seriously  the  attribution  to  God  in  the 
Bible  of  acts  that  a  good  being  could  not 
perform.  Moral  judgment  is  claiming  its 
rights,  even  though  by  some  they  can  be 
granted  only  through  inconsistency.  I  long 
for  the  time  when  the  inconsistency  shall 
be  done  away,  by  the  vanishing  of  the  view 
of  the  Bible  that  thus  hampers  the  moral 
sense.  If  I  could  welcome  the  Christian 
people  into  my  own  liberty  in  the  matter, 
we  should  all  rejoice  together. 

Neither  have  I   said  anything  of  the 
movement  of  my  mind  with  regard  to  the 
[   234   1 


THE  NINETIES 

Canon.  In  such  a  life  as  I  have  reviewed, 
I  could  not  fail  to  encounter  questions  as 
to  how  the  Bible  came  to  be  constituted 
as  it  is.  The  list  of  books  that  bore  God's 
authority  was,  of  course,  assumed  in  my 
childhood  to  be  identical  with  the  list  that 
I  read  at  the  front  of  my  Bible  and  com- 
mitted to  memory.  In  later  years  I 
learned  that  the  Canon  had  a  history, 
and  that  the  making  of  the  familiar  list 
was  not  so  simple  a  matter  as  I  had  sup- 
posed. From  the  old  point  of  view  the 
question  is  extremely  important.  Stu- 
dents have  frequently  become  aware  of 
this,  and  brought  the  subject  up  by  their 
questions:  "If  you  found  a  lost  epistle  of 
Paul,  would  you  bind  it  into  the  Bible  ? 
and  if  you  thought  a  book  had  better  not 
have  been  accepted  into  the  Canon,  would 
you  throw  it  out?"  To  such  questions 
I  have  been  accustomed  to  reply  that  we 
are  not  making  or  unmaking  Bibles  now, 
and  are  not  called  to  any  such  task.  The 
[  235  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

Bible  is  a  historical  fact,  and  we  have  no 
need  to  alter  it.  That  Bible  which  we  call 
single  is  really  a  collection  of  books.  If 
we  understand  the  real  significance  and 
quality  of  its  constituents,  and  learn  to 
put  a  just  estimate  upon  them  in  practical 
use,  that  is  all  that  we  have  to  do.  It  is 
for  us  to  treat  the  various  books  of  the 
Bible  as  what  they  are,  not  to  revise  their 
history,  or  to  give  them  a  new  grouping. 
Let  the  composite  Bible  stand  as  it  is, 
and  be  used  as  what  it  is.  We  need  not 
increase  it  or  diminish  it.  If  we  do  not 
think  well  of  the  book  of  Esther  on  moral 
grounds,  still  there  is  no  reason  why  we 
should  remove  it  from  the  position  in 
which  history  has  placed  it :  we  have  only 
to  use  it  as  the  kind  of  book  that  we  have 
found  it  to  be.  When  people  judged  it 
differently  they  used  it  differently:  we 
must  follow  our  own  light.  In  like  man- 
ner we  count  Ecclesiastes  as  an  element 
in  that  body  of  Scriptures  which  the  pre- 
[  236  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

Christian  time  produced  and  the  Christian 
time  adopted.  Hence  it  is  in  our  Bible: 
but  we  must  make  such  use  of  it  as  our 
knowledge  of  its  quality  entitles  it  to 
receive  from  us.  If  we  find  those  books 
inferior  to  the  best  in  the  Bible,  we 
have  only  to  use  them  as  inferior.  As 
to  a  lost  epistle  of  Paul,  I  heartily  wish 
that  one  might  be  recovered — as  con- 
ceivably it  may.  The  experience  would 
throw  a  flood  of  light  for  the  people 
upon  the  nature  of  the  Bible,  its  inspira- 
tion, and  its  claims.  The  question  of 
binding  it  in  with  its  fellows  in  the  Bible 
would  then  be  a  living  question,  not  an 
academic  one,  and  nothing  could  be 
more  wholesome.  People  would  be  forced 
to  see  on  what  principle  the  Bible  was 
made  up,  and  to  understand  that  for  us 
the  real  sacredness  of  a  book  is  due  to  its 
quality  and  its  relation  to  Christian  truth, 
not  to  its  authorship  or  its  external  attes- 
tation. But  at  present,  whatever  we 
[  237  1 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

might  do  with  another  epistle,  we  are 
handling  the  Bible  that  the  past  has 
handed  down  to  us,  and  have  the  right 
and  privilege  of  using  it  as  it  is. 

Of  course  I  know  that  this  judgment 
about  the  Canon  would  not  suit  the  old 
conditions.  In  those  conditions  the  vital 
questions  were,  How  was  the  Canon 
formed  ?  and,  What  is  our  evidence  that 
these  books  and  no  others  are  the  very 
books  of  God  ?  Many  years  ago  I  be- 
came aware  that  if  the  Bible  is  to  be 
recognized  as  absolutely  authoritative, 
we  must  have  a  Canon  that  is  settled  by 
divine  authority.  The  God  who  requires 
our  submission  to  certain  books  of  his 
own  inspiring  must  not  leave  us  to  find 
out  for  ourselves  which  books  they  are. 
If  he  would  be  reasonable  or  just,  he 
must  show  us  by  his  own  authority.  It 
is  the  only  way.  Our  own  judgment, 
or  the  judgment  of  the  Church,  or  the 
selective  power  of  history,  will  not  do: 
[  238  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

an  infallible  collection  must  be  infal- 
libly identified  for  those  who  are  re- 
quired to  accept  it.  Long  ago  I  knew 
this,  and  I  have  often  wondered  that 
the  point  was  so  persistently  overlooked 
by  the  defenders  of  high  inspiration.  In 
my  earlier  days,  I  wondered  on  my  own 
account  why  the  stamp  of  infallibility  was 
left  off  from  the  Canon,  as  I  discovered 
that  it  was,  and  why  the  collecting  of  the 
books  was  left  to  the  Christian  judgment 
and  the  course  of  events,  guided  by  the 
Spirit  of  God  only  as  many  other  matters 
are.  But  when  I  learned  what  manner 
of  book  the  Bible  is,  I  ceased  to  wonder 
why  its  contents  were  not  brought  to- 
gether under  the  sanction  of  supernatural 
attestation.  It  is  not  a  collection  that  de- 
mands the  drawing  of  its  boundary  lines 
by  manifest  divine  authority.  The  simple 
fact  is  that  under  a  variety  of  motives  the 
Church,  Jewish  and  Christian,  gathered 
up  the  precious  memorials  of  her  faith, 
[  239  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

and  here  they  are.  There  was  never  any 
guarantee  that  the  collection  should  be 
perfect,  and  perfect  we  cannot  claim  that 
it  is.  Perhaps  some  writings  equally 
precious  with  these  that  we  possess  were 
lost,  and  perhaps  some  that  were  of  in- 
ferior abiding  value  were  gathered  in.  By 
this  natural  process  we  have  received  the 
greatest  book  of  spiritual  reality  and 
power  that  the  world  has  ever  known, 
and  at  this  date  in  human  affairs  we  have 
not  to  change  the  Bible  that  we  possess. 
We  only  need  to  understand  it,  and  value 
it  according  to  its  worth,  and  put  it  to  its 
uses. 

From  the  old  point  of  view  I  used  to 
assume,  unthinkingly,  that  to  drop  the 
old  conception  of  a  book  in  the  Bible  was 
to  surrender  its  value.  It  is  true  that  I 
never  enjoyed  or  approved  the  talk  that 
I  used  to  hear,  about  the  critics'  tearing 
book  after  book  out  of  the  Bible  and 
throwing  them  away,  till  there  was  noth- 
[  240  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

ing  left  but  the  covers.  That  would  al- 
ways have  been  a  slander,  if  it  had  not 
been  so  profound  a  misunderstanding. 
Yet  I  can  remember  when  I  thought  that 
if  the  Pentateuch  was  not  written  by 
Moses  it  was  no  part  of  the  revelation  of 
God,  that  the  book  of  Isaiah  was  less 
truly  a  book  of  heavenly  value  if  it  had 
more  than  one  author,  and  that  if  the 
Fourth  Gospel  was  not  written  by  the 
apostle  John  it  bore  no  true  and  valuable 
testimony  to  Jesus.  If  I  had  heard  in 
those  days  the  suggestion  that  the  book 
of  Jonah  was  not  historical,  I  should  have 
said  that  in  that  case  it  was  worthless — 
so  ignorant  was  I  of  the  real  meaning  and 
value  of  that  beautiful  book.  But  all  that 
is  in  the  far  past.  It  was  the  book  of 
Isaiah  that  dealt  the  death-blow  to  my  old 
idea.  I  learned  that  the  mighty  chapters 
of  the  latter  part  could  not  have  been  so 
full  of  the  glow  of  God  if  they  had  not 
sprung  up  in  the  very  time  to  which  they 
[  241  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

had  reference;  and  that  time  was  far  on 
beyond  the  days  of  the  prophet  Isaiah. 
So  two  authors  at  least  there  must  have 
been:  perhaps  there  were  more:  and  the 
dual  authorship,  instead  of  detracting 
from  the  rich  divineness  of  the  book,  was 
necessary  to  account  for  it.  I  learned, 
too,  that  there  is  more  than  one  way  for 
a  writing  to  be  valuable,  and  to  be  a 
means  of  divine  revelation.  In  the  para- 
ble of  the  Prodigal  Son,  or  of  the  Good 
Samaritan,  we  do  not  demand  that  the 
events  that  are  described  shall  have 
actually  occurred,  before  we  can  hear  the 
voice  of  God  in  the  story,  and  we  need 
not  be  more  exacting  or  unimaginative 
with  the  book  of  Jonah.  The  first  chap- 
ter of  Genesis  rises  to  a  sublime  height  of 
revelation,  although  it  certainly  is  not  a 
record  of  actual  events.  In  any  instance, 
it  is  the  real  book  that  we  wish  to  discover 
and  understand,  and  we  may  be  sure  that 
it  is  in  the  real  book  that  we  shall  find  the 
[  242  ] 


THE  NINETIES 

divine  message.  I  am  glad  to  have  been 
cured  of  the  unbelief  according  to  which 
I  thought  that  I  should  lose  a  book  out  of 
my  Bible  if  I  lost  my  idea  of  its  author- 
ship. Unbelief  it  was,  and  misconcep- 
tion, too.  A  reader  will  not  perceive  the 
value  of  the  actual  book,  the  Bible  in  his 
hands,  until  he  has  gotten  rid  of  the  as- 
sumption that  there  is  peril  in  changing 
from  his  old  opinions.  Such  fear  of  dan- 
ger can  only  darken  his  eyes.  But  who- 
ever has  disposed  of  that  assumption, 
and  looked  at  the  Bible  with  the  new 
confidence  instead  of  the  old  fear,  may 
behold  there  a  glory  worthy  of  God  to 
which  aforetime  he  was  blind. 


[   243   ] 


VII 
THE  NEW  CENTURY 

AT  the  close  of  the  Nineteenth  Century 
I  had  been  engaged  for  a  decade  in  the 
work  to  which  my  life  had  led  me.  My 
method  of  using  the  Bible  had  been 
longer  than  a  decade  in  practice,  and 
through  practice  had  only  grown  clearer 
and  more  consistent.  I  had  had  no  wish 
to  go  back  from  it,  and  could  not  have 
gone  back  if  I  had  desired.  It  had  been 
attained  through  one  of  those  movements 
of  growth  that  cannot  be  revoked.  Con- 
sequently the  years  of  the  new  century 
have  not  recorded  any  great  changes  in 
my  attitude  toward  the  Bible.  Neverthe- 
less, I  must  say  a  few  words  about  these 
years.  The  due  result  of  my  previous  ex- 
[  244  ] 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 

perience  has  appeared  in  them  in  a  man- 
ner that  I  must  not  leave  unmentioned. 


In  this  last  period  I  have  not  been 
working  upon  my  Bible  nearly  so  much 
as  I  was  in  the  Seventies  or  the  Eighties, 
but  I  have  been  working  with  it,  by  means 
of  it,  in  the  light  of  it,  in  a  manner  that 
was  then  impossible.  From  being  mainly 
an  object  of  study,  the  Bible  has  passed 
on  to  be  more  and  more  a  means  of 
study;  and  such  it  has  continued  to  be 
until  the  present  time,  and  will  be  through 
the  remainder  of  my  life.  I  am  glad  to 
report  that  this  has  come  to  pass,  for  I 
am  sure  that  this  accords  with  the  will  of 
God  for  his  children. 

The  story  that  I  have  told  illustrates 
this  double  use  of  the  Bible,  first  as  an 
object  of  study  and  afterward  as  a  means 
of  study.  In  the  late  Seventies,  when 
without  will  of  my  own  I  was  plunged 
all  at  once  into  investigation  of  the  atone- 
[  245  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

ment,  the  keynote  of  my  later  work  was 
sounded.  I  have  described  the  change 
by  saying  that  I  then  passed  on  from 
using  the  Bible  in  the  light  of  its  state- 
ments, to  using  it  in  the  light  of  its 
principles.  Not  that  the  later  method 
was  then  first  introduced,  or  the  earlier 
then  abandoned.  Both  enter  into  all 
sound  study,  and  both  have  been  with  me 
more  or  less  from  first  to  last,  or  I  should 
have  no  experience  with  the  Bible  worth 
recording.  But  the  two  periods  were 
unlike,  in  that  attention  to  statements 
was  characteristic  of  the  earlier,  and  at- 
tention to  principles  of  the  later.  Once 
it  seemed  sufficient  to  inquire  what  the 
Bible  said  upon  a  given  subject,  and  to 
analyze  and  classify  the  answers.  After- 
ward it  became  necessary  to  inquire  not 
merely  what  the  Bible  said,  but  what  it 
taught,  upon  a  given  subject — to  ascertain 
what  light  it  gave,  by  means  of  its  great 
revelation  of  God  and  life.  What  it 
[  246  ] 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 

teaches  through  its  large  revealing  may 
be  something  different  from  what  it  says 
in  its  various  statements.  Certainly  what 
it  teaches  in  this  large  way  is  different 
from  what  it  says  in  some  of  its  state- 
ments. In  my  later  years  I  have  had  to 
look  beyond  the  sayings  to  the  teaching. 
The  significance  in  a  man's  life  of  this 
change  is  evident.  It  needs  no  proof  that 
this  change  of  method  is  in  effect  the  same 
as  that  which  was  mentioned  just  before 
it.  When  I  viewed  the  Bible  as  a  body  of 
statements,  it  was  natural  that  I  should 
use  it  chiefly  as  an  object  of  study.  I 
was  seeking  to  know  what  the  statements 
meant.  When  I  came  to  view  it  as  an 
expression  of  principles,  the  principles  of 
divine  religion,  it  thereby  became  to  me 
a  means  of  study:  then  I  sought  to  know 
whither  the  principles  led.  The  book 
thus  became  to  me  an  instrument  of  ad- 
vance, an  opportunity  for  the  obtaining 
of  further  light  upon  the  matters  of  which 
[  247  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

it  treats.  The  significance  of  these  last 
years  is  that  in  them  I  have  more  and 
more  used  the  Bible  as  the  divine  guide 
and  inspiration  for  my  own  study  of  the 
things  of  God.  It  seems  to  me  that  this 
change  must  correspond  to  God's  inten- 
tion for  a  man  advancing  from  youth  to 
age.  In  youth  he  must  wish  me  to  master 
the  statements  of  the  Bible.  In  later  life 
it  must  be  his  will  that  I  seize  upon  the 
principles  of  the  revelation  that  it  brings 
me,  and  use  them  in  exploring  the  heights 
and  depths  of  his  truth. 

In  these  years  of  the  new  century  it  has 
been  my  lot  to  be  doing  such  work  as  this 
in  connection  with  the  Christian  doctrine 
of  God  himself.  Having  been  intrusted 
with  the  task  of  giving  expression  to  that 
supreme  doctrine,  I  was  both  entitled  and 
required  to  follow  the  method  that  I  have 
now  set  forth,  and  to  explore  the  bound- 
less field  in  the  light  which  the  Christian 
revelation  affords  when  its  full  contents 
[  248  ] 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 

have  been  brought  out.  The  task  is  too 
great  for  man,  but  no  other  task  does  a 
man  undertake  when  he  endeavors  to 
exhibit  the  Christian  doctrine  of  God. 
Exactly  this  has  the  Bible  been  to  me  in 
this  great  research — the  bearer  of  the 
light  that  guided  mind  and  heart  to  the 
vision  of  the  divine  reality.  In  my  en- 
deavor to  see  God  in  the  light  of  Christ, 
the  Revealed  in  the  light  of  the  Revealer, 
the  Bible  has  ministered  to  me  the  Chris- 
tian truth  that  illumines  all  the  great 
realities,  human  and  divine.  In  using  it 
in  this  manner,  I  conceive  myself  to  have 
been  seeking  knowledge  of  God  in  a  way 
that  he  must  approve. 

It  is  evident  that  in  putting  the  Bible  to 
such  use  as  this  a  man  needs  to  be  con- 
fident, and  sure  of  his  ground.  If  I  had 
been  afraid  that  my  Bible  was  slipping 
away  from  me  and  likely  to  be  lost,  I 
should  not  have  been  able  to  employ  it 
[  249  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

thus.  Many  do  fear  that  it  is  slipping 
away,  and  are  not  sure  that  they  are  en- 
titled to  trust  it  simply.  There  are  so 
many  open  questions  about  it — so  much 
about  it  is  unsettled  and  liable  to  change 
—it  seems  so  certain  that  open  questions 
will  continue  to  embarrass  our  efforts 
after  knowledge  sure  and  clear:  how  can 
it  be  put  to  highest  uses  with  such  un- 
questioning confidence  as  my  purpose 
requires  ? 

With  regard  to  open  questions  about 
the  Bible,  I  can  say  that  within  recent 
years  some  of  them  have  been  settled  for 
me.  On  various  points  that  were  doubt- 
ful I  have  come  to  a  sense  of  certainty 
that  I  believe  to  be  well  grounded.  Many 
perplexities  have  thus  been  done  away. 
But  by  this  I  do  not  mean  that  the  era 
of  open  questions  is  closed,  or  closing. 
It  is  equally  true  that  within  the  same 
period  some  new  questions  have  been 
opened  for  me,  and  that  some,  both  old 
[  250  ] 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 

and  new,  remain  open  until  now,  and 
seem  likely  to  remain  open,  I  do  not  know 
how  long.  I  fully  expect,  too,  that  other 
questions  may  be  opened  in  time  to  come. 
But  in  all  this  there  is  nothing  to  be  won- 
dered at.  In  our  knowledge  of  the  Bible, 
as  in  all  other  knowledge,  open  questions 
are  to  be  expected  to  abide  with  us.  No 
knowledge  is  without  them,  or  ever  will 
be,  any  more  than  any  knowledge  has  ever 
been  without  them  in  time  past.  With 
reference  to  the  Bible,  we  have  reached  a 
time  when  we  are  more  aware  of  them 
than  before:  that  is  all.  In  this  field, 
as  in  every  other,  we  must  count  upon 
them  as  ever-present  companions  of  our 
thought.  If  we  cannot  have  confidence 
in  our  Bible  in  the  presence  of  questions 
that  we  do  not  know  how  to  answer,  con- 
fidence we  cannot  have.  If  strong  and 
happy  use  of  the  Bible  is  incompatible 
with  waiting  for  light  upon  a  multitude 
of  points,  we  shall  always  be  helpless. 
[  251  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

For  my  part,  there  are  many  points  about 
the  Bible  on  which  I  have  no  certainty, 
and  many  on  which  I  expect  future 
light  to  alter  present  judgment.  Many 
of  these  open  questions  may  remain 
open  for  a  long  time  to  come,  and  I 
have  no  doubt  that  others,  equally  im- 
portant with  these,  may  be  opened  here- 
after. But  to  say  this  is  to  tell  no 
strange  story.  It  is  only  to  say  that 
knowledge  of  the  Bible  is  increasing 
and  destined  to  increase.  New  under- 
standing always  opens  new  matters  that 
are  yet  to  be  understood,  and  new  light 
always  brings  the  certainty  of  future 
changes.  It  is  very  true  that  if  I  were 
still  using  the  Bible  in  the  method  in 
which  I  was  reared,  this  condition  of 
things  might  be  very  troublesome,  and 
my  confident  freedom  might  be  greatly 
impaired.  My  release  from  that  method 
was  a  necessity.  But  in  my  present  atti- 
tude the  existence  of  open  questions  does 
[  252  ] 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 

not  distress  me,  and  I  have  no  fear  that 
the  questions  outstanding  will  be  settled 
in  such  manner  as  to  destroy  the  value 
of  the  Bible.  My  confidence  in  it  rests 
on  a  securer  basis. 

The  ground  of  my  confidence  is  this. 
By  this  time  in  the  history  of  the  world 
the  quality  of  the  Bible  as  the  book  of 
divine  religion  is  so  established  that  we 
may  think  of  it  with  serene  confidence. 
It  is  certain  that  the  Bible  gives  us  knowl- 
edge of  Jesus,  and  that  Jesus  gives  us 
knowledge  of  God,  and  that  God  as  Jesus 
reveals  him  in  the  true  light  of  life.  Our 
sacred  book  is  thus  our  guide  to  Jesus, 
to  God,  and  to  life  divine.  This  fact  has 
been  established  in  long  human  experi- 
ence, and  can  be  trusted.  We  are  not  to 
be  deprived  of  it :  it  will  stand.  For  some 
minds  it  may  be  obscured,  but  it  is  a 
steadfast  certainty,  on  which  we  are  en- 
titled to  rest  in  peace.  In  this  view  of  the 
Bible  I  hold  it,  and  use  it,  and  expect  to 
[  253  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

use  it  as  long  as  I  live,  and  commend  it 
to  the  generation  following.  I  beg  my 
fellow- Christians  not  to  distrust  it  or  fear 
for  it,  as  if  open  questions  were  to  be  set- 
tled to  its  destruction  or  even  to  its  weak- 
ening. The  question  of  its  religious  value 
is  not  an  open  question,  and  we  must  not 
act  as  if  it  were.  It  is  a  gift  of  God  that 
will  abide. 

The  chief  danger  about  the  Bible  at 
present  is,  on  the  one  hand,  that  it  will  be 
studied  too  much  in  the  mere  spirit  of 
criticism,  without  regard  to  its  religious 
value,  and,  on  the  other,  that  the  timidity 
of  Christian  people  on  critical  grounds 
will  prevent  them  from  holding  that  re- 
ligious value  in  its  true  rank  and  place. 
In  its  religious  preciousness  and  power 
the  Bible  is  gloriously  their  own ;  but  there 
is  danger  that  they  will  not  hold  that  fact 
in  a  sufficiently  strong  and  intelligent 
confidence.  I  believe  that  the  religious 
confidence  in  the  Bible  to  which  I  have 
[  254  ] 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 

been  led  is  a  sample  of  that  to  which  the 
Christian  people  are  entitled,  and  I  wish 
they  all  might  have  it.  That  is  the  reason 
why  I  have  tried  to  set  it  forth  in  these 
reminiscences,  and  am  calling  the  chil- 
dren of  our  Father  to  join  me  in  such  ex- 
perience as  I  here  commemorate.  I  am 
thankful  for  the  way  in  which  I  have 
been  led  to  this  free  confidence,  and 
gratefully  testify  that  the  ancient  book 
still  brings  me  the  light  and  inspira- 
tion in  which  I  work;  and  I  invite 
all  timid  souls  out  into  the  liberty 
that  I  have  found. 

Since  these  pages  began  to  be  written, 
I  have  listened  to  a  sermon  that  left  me 
rejoicing  in  more  ways  than  one — rejoic- 
ing in  so  strong  and  winning  a  presenta- 
tion of  a  searching  truth,  and  rejoicing 
again  that  I  did  not  fall  under  its  con- 
demnation. The  text  was,  "Now  that 
I  am  become  a  man,  I  have  put  away 
[  255  ] 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE'  BIBLE 

childish  things,"  and  the  theme  was  the 
impossibility  of  maintaining  a  satisfactory 
adult  religious  life  on  the  basis  of  ideas 
received  in  childhood.  For  illustration 
the  preacher  took  the  conceptions  of  the 
Bible  and  of  God  that  childhood  can  ap- 
prehend. He  showed  how  full  these  con- 
ceptions are  of  worth  and  beauty,  and 
how  genuine  a  religion  of  childhood  they 
may  support,  but  he  showed  also  how 
inadequate  they  are  to  support  the  re- 
ligious experience  that  is  normal  to  adult 
humanity.  The  childish  ideas  are  too 
light  and  small  to  bear  the  strain  of  ad- 
vanced life :  they  need  to  yield  their  place 
to  ideas  that  have  been  grappled  with 
and  made  one's  own  by  the  powers  of 
maturity.  And  yet,  the  preacher  said, 
the  childish  ideas  are  exactly  what  thou- 
sands of  Christians  are  endeavoring  to 
live  upon  all  their  days.  The  weakness 
of  much  life  in  the  church  he  attributed 
to  this  unfortunate  combination  of  adult 
[  256  ] 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 

needs  and  infantile  supplies.  To  his 
hearers,  or  as  many  of  them  as  the  ac- 
cusation suited,  he  said,  in  effect:  "You 
went  out  from  the  Sunday-school  in  your 
teens,  with  such  ideas  of  God  and  the 
Bible  as  you  had  then  been  able  to  re- 
ceive, and  you  have  been  living  your 
religious  life  upon  them  ever  since.  In 
the  world's  work  you  have  bent  your 
powers  to  large  undertakings,  and  have 
grappled  with  the  enterprises  of  adult 
humanity.  But  upon  the  Bible  and  the 
thought  of  God  you  have  never  made 
strenuous  exercise  of  your  maturer  facul- 
ties: you  have  never  done  man's  work 
in  seeking  a  more  adequate  knowledge 
of  these  realities,  but  have  tried  to  live 
along  nourished  by  no  larger  or  richer 
conceptions  than  you  made  your  own 
when  your  powers  were  those  of  children. 
No  wonder  that  your  adult  minds  cannot 
more  than  half  believe  in  the  Bible  and 
the  God  of  your  infancy :  no  wonder  that 
[257  1 


SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

your  religious  life  is  narrow  and  poor, 
your  minds  are  perplexed  by  the  hard 
questions  of  the  day,  and  your  energies 
are  repressed  or  misdirected.  You  need 
to  put  away  childish  things,  and  to 
make  your  own  the  Bible  and  the  God 
of  men."  I  approved  the  message  with 
all  my  heart  and  was  glad  that  I  was 
able  to  listen  to  it  without  remorse.  I 
might,  I  said  to  myself,  have  tried  to 
live  until  now  upon  the  ideas  of  the 
Bible  and  of  God  to  which  I  had  at- 
tained at  the  end  of  the  Fifties  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century — true  ideas  and  not 
unworthy  then,  .but  too  small,  too  unrea- 
soned, too  ill-supported,  too  unspiritual, 
for  the  needs  of  my  later  years;  and  I 
was  glad  that  I  could  say  to  God  and  my 
own  soul  that  I  had  spent  the  lifetime  of 
a  man  in  enlarging,  deepening,  and  cor- 
recting the  ideas  that  as  a  child  I  had  re- 
ceived, and  in  seeking  better  foundations 
for  a  better  faith.  Thanking  God  for 
[  258  ] 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 

this,  I  thanked  the  preacher  for  his  mes- 
sage, and  wished  that  his  sound  words 
might  go  forth  to  all  the  Christians  in 
the  world. 


[  259  ] 


BOOKS  BY 

WILLIAM  NEWTON  CLARKE,  D.D. 

Professor  of  Theology  at  Colgate  University 

SIXTY  YEARS  WITH  THE  BIBLE 

A  Record  of  Experience 

12mo  $1.25  net,  postpaid  $1.35 

In  this  book  Dr.  Clarke  tells  the  story  of  his  own 
life  in  the  single  character  of  a  student,  lover,  and  user 
of  the  Bible,  exhibiting  the  mental  processes  through 
which  the  change  from  the  old  to  the  new  attitude 
toward  the  Bible  has  come  to  pass.  He  recounts  the 
chief  influences  from  without,  the  main  crises  in  thought, 
and  the  entrance  of  significant  results  into  his  life,  and 
exhibits  his  present  position  in  contrast  with  the  old. 
He  thus  traces  his  journey  from  childhood  to  the 
present  day,  and  his  story  possesses  the  intense  interest 
which  belongs  to  a  genuine  human  document,  reflect- 
ing the  revolution  which  has  taken  place  in  the  last 
generation  with  reference  to  the  view  of  the  Bible. 
Dr.  Clarke  maintains  that  in  passing  through  this  revo- 
lution to  which  his  generation  was  born  he  has  never 
come  into  danger  of  losing  his  faith  in  God  and  Jesus 
Christ,  and  he  offers  this  revelation  of  his  experience  in 
the  belief  that  it  may  be  an  enlightening  and  an  en- 
couraging thing  to  many  a  perplexed  and  anxious  soul. 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS,  NEW  YORK 


BY   WILLIAM   NEWTON   CLARKE,   D.D. 

THE  CHRISTIAN 
DOCTRINE  OF  GOD 

(International  Theological  Library) 
Crown  8vo  $2.50  net 

11  We  commend  to  our  readers  Dr.  Clarke's  vol- 
ume."— The  Outlook. 

"  In  the  light  of  modern  investigation  and  modern 
thought,  this  book  is  to  be  commended  beyond  all 
others  written  in  recent  decades." 

— The  Chicago  Evening  Post. 

"  It  is  as  fine  a  piece  of  theistic  study  as  this  age 
has  produced,  and  adds  special  glory  to  American 
theological  scholarship." — Heidelberg  Teacher. 

"  The  book  is  delightful  reading.  Its  charm  of 
style,  its  clarity  of  expression,  its  winsomeness  of  state- 
ment carry  one  unwearied  from  page  to  page." 

— Congregationalist  and  Christian  World. 

"  A  notable  monument  of  learning,  skill  and  spirit- 
uality."— San  Francisco  Argonaut. 


BY  WILLIAM  NEWTON  CLARKE,  D.D. 


An  Outline  of  Christian 
Theology 

Crown  8vo  $2.50  net 

"This  is  the  simplest,  clearest,  most  radical,  and  most 
spiritual  theological  treatise  we  have  ever  seen.  It  is,  in- 
deed, in  these  four  characteristics  rather  a  treatise  on 
religion  than  on  theology.  It  is  vital,  not  scholastic;  a 
minister  to  largeness  of  life,  through  clearness  of  thought. 
.  .  .  To  ministers  holding  in  whole  or  in  part  the  new 
philosophy,  we  recommend  this  volume  as  showing  them 
how  to  use  that  philosophy  to  conserve,  nourish,  and 
strengthen  the  old  faith."—  The  Outlook. 

"  We  have  read  it  with  great  interest.  Its  author, 
though  so  modest  as  not  to  prefix  the  word  'Professor'  to 
his  name,  at  once  commands  our  respect.  He  is  a  clear 
thinker,  a  fine  scholar,  a  scientific  and  philosophical  the- 
ologian. The  work  is  able ;  it  is  stimulating ;  it  is  fresh, 
and  reveals  him  in  touch  with  the  latest  thought  of  the  day. 
It  is  in  many  respects  an  epoch-making  book.  .  .  .  We 
commend  this  book  to  any  who  desire  to  get  the  clearest 
statement  of  the  new  theology  that  can  be  found  in 
English." — Presbyterian  and  Reformed  Review. 

Professor  Marcus  Dods  writes  : — "  Has  it  ever  happened 
to  any  of  our  readers  to  take  up  a  work  on  systematic 
theology,  with  the  familiar  divisions,  '  God,'  '  Man,'  '  Sin,' 
'Christ,'  'The  Holy  Spirit,'  'The  Church,'  'The  Last 
Things,'  and  open  it  with  a  sigh  of  weariness  and  dread, 
and  find  himself  fascinated  and  enthralled,  and  compelled 
to  read  on  to  the  last  word  ?  Let  any  one  who  craves  a  new 
experience  of  this  kind  procure  Dr.  Clarke's  '  Outline.'  We 
guarantee  that  he  will  learn  more,  with  greater  pleasure, 
than  he  is  likely  to  learn  in  any  other  systematic  theology." 


BY   WILLIAM   NEWTON    CLARKE,   D.D. 

A  Study  of  Christian  Missions 

12mo  $1.25 

"  Details  of  organization  and  method  are  discussed  with  far- 
seeing  sagacity  and  clearness." — Christian  Advocate. 

Can  I  Believe  in  God  the  Father? 

(Lectures  Delivered  before  the  Harvard  Summer  School 

12mo  $1.00 

"  Dr.  Clarke  has  handled  some  of  the  most  profound  specula- 
tions in  theology  with  rare  simplicity  and  force.  He  introduces 
his  hearer  at  once  to  an  exposition  of  the  practical  argument  for 
the  being  of  God  which  is  unusually  lucid  and  suggestive.  His 
language  is  simple  and  the  analysis  of  his  thoughts  perspicuous." 

—  The  Churchman. 

What  Shall  We  Think  of  Christian- 

if-TrO       (The  Levering  Lectures  before  the  Johns  Hopkins 
1Ly  •         University,   1899) 

12mo  $1.00 

".  .  .  The  address  of  a  cultured  man  to  cultured  hearers;  they 
are  intent  on  what  is  essential  and  vital;  they  deal  with  facts 
rather  than  theories;  the  note  of  realism  is  heard  throughout." 

—  The  Outlook. 

The  Use  of  the  Scriptures  in 
I2mo  Theology  $10Q 

"Many  a  reader  will  find  his  own  difficulties  and  struggles 
accurately  delineated.  It  is  this  comradeship  in  a  common  men- 
tal and  moral  suffering  which  gives  the  book  its  hold  and  mental 
fascination . ' ' —  The  Standa  rd. 


T 


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